- Former Head of Allen & Overy Global Law Intelligence Unit
- Former Special Global Counsel at Allen & Overy
- Visiting Professor in International Financial Law, University of Oxford
- Yorke Distinguished Visiting Fellow, University of Cambridge
- Visiting Professor, Queen Mary University, London
Philip Wood is one of the world's leading experts in comparative and cross-border financial law and an experienced practitioner. He works full-time for Allen & Overy in the firm's London office. He has written around 19 books, including nine volumes in the series Law and Practice of International Finance published in 2007/8. His latest book is for the general reader called The Fall of the Priests and the Rise of the Lawyers.
He pioneered a method of measuring financial law according to key indicators and is particularly well-known for his colour-coded global law maps. He has developed a methodology for legal risk ratings of the jurisdictions of the world with regard to both their written law and the application of the law.
He completed the London Marathon in 2005, the Berlin Marathon in 2011 (at age 69) and the Paris Marathon in 2014. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2009.
He was born in Livingstone, Zambia and is married with four children.
Philip was awarded a an honorary QC in 2010 and CBE in the Queen's New Year honours list in 2015 for services to English and Financial Law.