ENS taps South African finance lawyer to expand African cross-border lending reach

A South Africa-qualified lawyer with dual High Court and England and Wales solicitor credentials, Alex Cullinan has joined ENS’s Cape Town office from White & Case, where she held the position of local partner. The firm announced the hire on Wednesday, 19 August.

The appointment signals ENS’s push to deepen its cross-border financing capabilities across African and European markets. Cullinan brings more than 15 years of experience across fund finance, sustainability-linked lending, leveraged finance, acquisition finance, debt restructuring, and real estate and infrastructure finance. Her dual qualification positions her to handle transactions that cross jurisdictional lines, a practical advantage in markets where capital structures routinely span multiple legal regimes.

Craig Saven, head of banking and finance at ENS, was direct about the strategic intent. “Alex’s appointment reinforces our continued investment in our cross-border financing capabilities and our commitment to providing integrated legal support to banking and finance clients across Africa and internationally,” he said.

Cullinan’s career traces a path through several of South Africa’s largest legal practices. She began at Deneys in 2008, moved to Bowman Gilfillan in 2009, then transferred to A&O Shearman in 2011 before joining Freshfields in 2012. She returned to A&O Shearman in 2015, was promoted to counsel in 2019, and joined White & Case as a local partner in 2021.

By contrast, the Cullinan hire is not an isolated move. In June of this year, ENS brought on Andréa Cabanac, a former Norton Rose Fulbright lawyer, as an executive for its Johannesburg natural resources and environment practice. Corporate commercial executive Rakhee Dullabh also returned to the Johannesburg office last year after a stint at Wotton Kearney.

ENS has also extended its footprint beyond traditional finance and corporate work. Earlier in 2026, the firm established a forensics team in Ghana to address rising fraud challenges in that market.

Taken together, these moves reflect a deliberate capital allocation by ENS toward specialist capabilities across the continent. The emphasis on financing and natural resources is not incidental. Infrastructure development, commodity extraction, and fund-backed corporate transactions remain the primary engines of legal work in the region, and firms that can offer deep local expertise alongside international market knowledge are best placed to capture that flow. Whether ENS’s expanding bench translates into a measurable shift in mandates across African capital markets is the question that will define the return on this investment.