Shruti Ajitsaria

Biography

Shruti is the Head of Fuse, Allen & Overy’s tech innovation space which opened in September 2017. Fuse’s philosophy is to identify legaltech, regtech and dealtech companies relevant to A&O lawyers and their clients and to find ways to start working together.

Prior to launching Fuse, Shruti was a Counsel in the Derivatives and Structured Finance group based in London, specialising in credit derivatives (involving drafting almost all of the standard documentation in this area over the last decade). Shruti is now the first person at A&O to have directly been promoted to partner into its Advanced Delivery & Solutions (AD&S) Group.

Outside of Allen & Overy, Shruti has three children (aged 11, 9, and 5). She is interested in governance (having undertaken the FT Diploma in Non-Executive Directorships and being on the Board of ZSL), education (being on the Advisory Board to the MSc in Law and Finance at the University of Oxford and a governor at the Haberdashers' Aske's Schools in Elstree), entrepreneurship (having completed a 3 month course for entrepreneurs at Google Campus, managing a sector-agnostic portfolio of private investments and appearing on both series of BBC 2’s “Million Pound Menu” as a restaurant investor) and D&I (having completed the Judicial Support Scheme aimed at increasing diversity in the judiciary and being the AD&S Female Lead representative).

In 2019, Shruti won the Asian Women of Achievement Award in the Professionals category, was included in the HERoes Role Model List and the Financial Times List of the Top 10 Legal Intrapreneurs. In 2018, Shruti was awarded a TechWomen 50 Award and a Fastcase 50 Award and was also included in the following lists: Lawyer’s Hot100, Brummell Magazine’s 30 Inspirational Women, Management Today’s Power Part Timers, the Inclusive Boards 100 most influential BAME leaders in UK and Innovate Finance’s Standout 35 Women in FinTech.

Research projects & programmes

Law and Finance