Creating your own sunshine: Katja Fenton’s intentional path to GC

Katja Fenton reflects on the deliberate choices, unexpected moves and key stepping stones that led her to the role of General Counsel at Fugro.

Legal careers are rarely linear or predictable. For Fenton, the path to GC at Fugro was shaped less by a fixed plan and more by a series of intentional choices: international moves, roles that stretched her, and a belief in what she calls “creating your own sunshine.” Hers is a career defined by momentum and openness, rather than certainty.

Today, Fenton leads the global legal and compliance function of a highly technical multinational operating in more than 50 countries. Her position reflects not a single decisive leap, but a progression built through experience. A willingness to follow opportunity into unfamiliar markets and to place herself consistently close to the business.

Looking back, she is candid about how early clarity helped guide those decisions. “I was quite deliberate about where I applied, because I knew I wanted an international component to my work,” she says. That sense of direction, paired with a readiness to say yes when opportunity arose, has become a defining feature of her professional life.

Early signals, or knowing what you want even if you don’t know how 

Fenton began her legal career in London, training and qualifying at Clifford Chance. While many young lawyers focus on technical excellence alone, she was already thinking several steps ahead.

“If you manage to get a taste of what it’s like to be close to clients early on, it leaves a huge impression,” she says. During her training, she sought exposure that went beyond traditional law firm work, scanning for secondments and opportunities that would put her in the room where decisions were being made.

That intention paid off when she secured a secondment to the Olympic Delivery Authority ahead of the London 2012 Games, an experience she describes as formative.

“Every day I was in meetings where there might not have been a legal issue, but legal needed to be there. That’s when I realized I didn’t want to be at the end of the line drafting documents. I wanted to help shape outcomes from the start.”

The lesson is clear: career-defining moments often come not from doing more of the same, but from stepping sideways into roles that expand perspective, visibility, and influence.

Shortly after returning from the secondment, another opportunity emerged. Clifford Chance needed support in Dubai; Fenton accepted without hesitation. The initial six-month project became three years.

“The scale, the speed, the diversity of projects – I don’t think I would have had that breadth of experience if I’d stayed in London.”

Beyond the technical exposure, the move sharpened her cultural intelligence. Working across jurisdictions and nationalities brought lessons in communication, influence, and misunderstanding. “Miscommunication because of cultural differences can have a huge impact and I learned that firsthand,” she says.

It was also in Dubai that Fenton began to consider moving in-house: guided by mentors who recognized her potential and encouraged her to take the leap. “You don’t always realize it at the time, but certain people become allies who really shape your career,” she says.

The leap that looked impossible

Perhaps the clearest example of Fenton’s willingness to embrace uncertainty came with her move to Thailand. At the time, she had met her future husband, a pilot based in Bangkok. Professionally, the move was risky. “I didn’t expect to find a role at all. It’s not typically seen as an international legal hub.”

However, within weeks, Fenton had accepted a senior in-house role with BlueScope Buildings, responsible for legal and compliance across five southeast Asian countries.

“That role opened up an entirely new area of learning,” she says. “It was the first time I had responsibility for compliance as well as legal, and it was also my first real people leadership role.”

The experience was demanding: time zones differences, headquarters that were thousands of miles away, and global policies didn’t always translate locally. But the lessons were invaluable.

“When you work outside headquarters, you quickly see what works and what doesn’t when rolling out global programs.
If you don’t account for local realities, things fall flat.”

Building depth through stepping stones, not shortcuts

After several years in southeast Asia, Fenton made another intentional move. This time back to Europe, joining ASML in the Netherlands. The role, initially leading the contracts team, later expanded into ethics and business integrity, where she helped build a compliance function almost from scratch.

“The hiring manager took a huge chance on me. My CV wasn’t traditional. But that role gave me an enormous amount of experience I couldn’t have gained otherwise.”

At ASML, she worked through periods of rapid growth and organizational transformation, learning how to prioritize legal resources, embed lawyers within the business, and operate as a true strategic partner. She also refined many of the leadership skills that would later define her tenure as general counsel.

Looking back, Fenton sees these roles not as detours, but as deliberate stepping stones. Each move added a new dimension – international exposure, compliance leadership, cultural fluency, executive influence – ultimately preparing her for the GC role she holds today at Fugro.

“Creating your own sunshine”

Asked to distil her journey into advice, Fenton returns to a recurring theme: intentionality combined with openness. “There’s a lot about creating your own sunshine and your own luck. But one of the biggest things I’ve learned is the importance of allies. People who say your name in rooms you’re not in.”

Now, as a GC, she sees part of her role doing the same for others. “I look for quiet talent and ask how I can support them. You can’t always create opportunities yourself, but relationships can.”

When Fenton reflects on her career, she describes it as a sequence of moments where she chose to lean in rather than step back. Some moves felt exciting, others were unsettling, there were times when the destination was clear and times when it was not. What carried her forward was a steady belief that each role, wherever it was and however unlikely it seemed, would teach her something worth carrying into the next chapter. 

Careers don’t need to be perfectly mapped. But they do benefit from clarity of intent, courage in the face of uncertainty, and a willingness to say yes. Even when the path ahead isn’t obvious.