Laura Carstensen
Reporting Panel Member
Biography
Laura Carstensen (appointed in 2005 and a Deputy Chairman between 2009-2011) is a senior lawyer with extensive experience of EU and UK competition law practice including as a partner in the City law firm Slaughter and May (1994-2004). She is co-founder and director of two online mail order businesses, Blue Banyan Ltd and Hortica. She is a Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a member of the Cooperation & Competition Panel for NHS-Funded Services, a non-executive director of the Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust Hospital and MLex Limited and an independent member of the Business Oversight Board of The Law Society of England & Wales. She is also a Trustee of National Museums Liverpool.
Register of interests
- Commissioner, Equality and Human Rights Commission (January 2013)
- Member, Business Oversight Board of The Law Society of England and Wales (from February 2012)
- Trustee, National Museums Liverpool (from October 2011) and member of the Audit Committee (from September 2012)
- Shareholder/non-executive director, Blue Banyan Ltd (www.bluebanyan.co.uk) and Meditation Designs suppliers of mind/body/spirit products and Hortica (www.hortica.biz), supplier of gardening products
- Non-executive director, MLex Limited
- Investor/shareholder, Spyder/Redspy Ltd, a company designing websites and developing digital content principally for the automotive industry
- Member, Cooperation & Competition Panel for NHS-Funded Services
- Previously: non-executive Board member, Office of the Parliamentary Counsel (Cabinet Office) (until June 2011)
- Previously: self-employed consultant on strategy & business development to the Antitrust group of the law firm Linklaters (until January 2010)
- Previously: partner, Slaughter and May (until June 2004)
