Managing Director
Francesca is Casa Londra's founder and Managing Director and she also practices as a solicitor/head of the Italian Desk at Child & Child, an English law firm specialised in property law. After a law degree in Genoa, Francesca moved to London in 1995. Here she attended a two-year Postgraduate Diploma in Law at the College of Law and qualified as a UK solicitor specialised in corporate finance and banking law.
In 1997 Francesca started working for the American law firm Coudert Brothers where she assisted Italian clients with commercial matters, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions. In particular Francesca assisted MTS SpA, the telematic trading platform for European government bonds with the incorporation of its English subsidiary EuroMTS Ltd. In 1999 she moved to Paris where she worked in the French office of Coudert Brothers for one year assisting MTS SpA to incorporate its French subsidiary MTS France.
From 2002 to 2005 Francesca worked in Milan as Legal Counsel for MTS SpA dealing with a wide range of corporate, financial and commercial matters. During those years she also qualified as an Italian lawyer (avvocato). In 2005 she came back to London where she was appointed General Counsel for Earls Court & Olympia, the two major exhibition centres in Central London. Her role involved dealing with commercial leases, employment matters, hire venue agreements and other legal matters. In 2010 she coordinated the sale of Earls Court Exhibition Centre to Capital and Counties Properties/Liberty International.
Since 2011 Francesca has focused her work in the London residential property market and she practices as a property solicitor advising individual overseas investors, developers, lenders, banks etc. Francesca assists her clients not only in relation to property acquisitions and sales but also in respect of mortgage applications, bridge lending, refinancing, lease extensions and licences for alterations.
Alongside her legal activity the need emerged to assist her Italian clients investing in the London property market with other pre and post-acquisition services like property finding, refurbishment and interior design, management and letting. This is how Francesca created Casa Londra, with the assistance of a group of friends with her first office in her house in Fulham. Now Casa Londra is in charge of a portfolio of 300 properties mostly located in Chelsea and Kensington and in 2017 she also opened the Casa Londra Shop, a showroom for refurbishment and interior design services at 310 Old Brompton Road.
The two roles in Casa Londra and Child & Child are extremely complementary and making a property investment in London with Francesca's assistance provides clients with great confidence as they receive 360-degree support.
Francesca is also President and Trustee of Fondazione Francesca Rava Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos NPH UK, an international charity assisting disadvantaged children in Haiti and nine countries in Latin America. Francesca regularly organises fundraising events in London and goes to Haiti every summer to work in the NPH Campus as a volunteer.
In 2018 she was also appointed International Ambassador for Genova by Mayor Marco Bucci. She left her hometown Genoa twenty-five years ago but Liguria is still very much in her heart. In her spare time Francesca escapes to Santa Margherita Ligure with her three children.
Telephone
+44 (0)20 3405 4346
E-mail
francesca.griffiths@casa-londra.com
