Darryl Cooke, the founder of the corporate firm Gunnercooke, has welcomed his sons Ashley and Hayden into the business as joint chiefs of staff. Ashley Cooke and Hayden Cooke have joined the firm’s leadership team with the goal of propelling the company’s culture into the next generation. Their role will involve immersing themselves in the business and spearheading growth and innovation.
Darryl Cooke, who started the firm with co-founder Sarah Gilbourne in 2010, has expressed his huge ambitions for the company. Cooke Senior, known as the ‘founder and visionary’ of Gunnercooke, began his career as a barrister before moving on to roles as head of private equity at Addleshaw Goddard and DLA Piper, and leading the corporate team at Hill Dickinson.
Gunnercooke now has 15 offices across the UK, US, and Europe, with a recent addition of a Chicago base. The firm employs over 500 lawyers and reported a turnover of £82 million last year, positioning it within the mid-tier bracket of UK corporate law firms.
The Cooke brothers, both in their mid-30s, have impressive academic and professional backgrounds. Hayden Cooke, trained at Slaughter and May, a Magic Circle firm, and later worked in-house at tech start-ups. Ashley Cooke, a former management consultant at PwC, returned to university in 2022 to pursue an MSc in biodiversity and conservation. Prior to joining Gunnercooke, Ashley was managing the family’s 200-acre rewilding project, The Meadowlands, in Herefordshire.
Darryl Cooke commented on the appointment, stating: ‘I have considered the options for how we accelerate this growth while remaining true to our culture. Our view has always been that building upon the culture that we set out to create is a big part of who we are. It has been our ambition from Gunnercooke’s early days to place our community and people at the heart of what we do. I’m therefore pleased to welcome my sons to continue driving this culture into the next generation.’
