About

An extremely highly experienced general counsel, Tan Gim Boon has been group general counsel of Axiata Group since 2008 (he was previously group general counsel of predecessor company TM International as well) and became group chief risk officer in addition to this in 2013. When pushed on the foremost three highlights he can recall over the course of his highly successful career, Boon offered the following: ‘Being involved in the formation of Axiata Group over the course of two years from 2005 – 2007 via the disposals and acquisition of various telecoms assets in Africa and Asia would be the first. The second is the demerger of Axiata group from Telekom Malaysia which involved a complex transaction spanning ten countries, multiple shareholders (some listed entities within the ten countries) and regulators. The final highlight is the moulding and training of the legal team that has resulted in former team members now working as heads of legal in other companies around the region and some within Axiata Group’. He has also been highly successful in creating and maintaining the highly capable, committed and disciplined legal team that he now leads. ‘I had to start the department from the ground up when I joined’, he says. ‘I also had to put in place various processes and standardised templates for key commercial contracts, and have in place monitoring system to monitor compliance with contractual and key legislative obligations and change the culture of the legal departments within the group both at headquarters and in the subsidiaries. This was to get them to consider the commercial aspects of the deal more instead of just the black letter law, be business partners with other functions to help them rather than a rule-ticking department that other departments must comply with to get a contract signed. We are now seen as business partners rather than just a compliance function’.