Catherine Gokah hired by Kirkland & Ellis as an investment funds partner in London

Catherine Gokah hired by Kirkland & Ellis as an investment funds partner in London

She was earlier working with Ashurst

Kirkland & Ellis has hired funds expert Catherine Gokah to bolster its market-leading European investment funds group with over 25 partners. It advises some of the region's largest investment fund sponsors.

Gokah joins as a partner in the firm's London office, where her practice will focus on advising sponsors on fundraising activities across a range of alternative asset classes, including infrastructure, real estate, and credit, and as co-investment programs and liquidity solutions transactions.

She is the second fund's partner to join Kirkland in London this year, following the hire of European secondary market specialist Aleksander Bakic from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, early this year.

Christopher Braunack, the London-based investment funds partner at Kirkland, said, "Gokah will bring significant additional senior resources to our European and global fundraising practice. It relates to both infrastructure and real estate funds, at a time when those asset classes are becoming more attractive to institutional investors considering prevailing macro-economic conditions."

Gokah joined Ashurst in 2018 and became a partner at the firm in 2021. She started her career in private practice at Simmons & Simmons before moving to Covington & Burling. She also worked in-house at large international banks.

Her major deals at Ashurst included being part of the team led by Nick Goddard that advised on the interim closing of the Foresight Energy Infrastructure Partners Fund, a sustainability-led fund.

A spokesperson at Ashurst remarked "We thank Gokah for the contribution she made to our highly regarded London investment funds practice. We wish her well for the next stage in her career. Our global investment funds team will continue its very strong growth of recent years to meet the robust client demand."