What are the most significant cases or transactions that you have recently been involved in?

From a legal perspective, I manage and lead all renewable energy and energy transition investments across Asia undertaken by the Green Investment Group of the Macquarie Group. Milestone transactions in recent years included the acquisitions of Asian onshore renewable energy platform Blue Leaf Energy, India-based C&I solar developer Vibrant Energy, and independent Philippines-based tower operator Phil-Tower Consortium Inc. Other noteworthy transactions included the Group’s new partnerships with Total and SK to develop over 2GW offshore wind projects in Korea and with FECON to develop a 500MW offshore wind project in Vietnam.

If you have worked in other countries, what are the main challenges unique to operating as an in-house counsel in your current location?

Being based in Singapore means that you are expected to cover multiple cultures, multiple distinctive legal systems and regulatory environments and a wide variety of counterparties. As a person, being open-minded and resilient is essential in this region. As a lawyer, persistently researching and learning various different legal systems and regulatory developments is required.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

It is critical for in-house lawyers to be involved in the early stage of transactions or disputes to strategise with the business partners as it helps them in a number of ways: for transactions, to pre-empt regulatory hurdles and discover the most efficient structure and, for disputes, to thoroughly assess the organization’s risk appetite and devise an effective settlement strategy. Furthermore, throughout any transaction or dispute, in-house lawyers need to focus on identifying and suggesting both best-case and fallback solutions to any legal issue in a way that makes it evident to the business partners that we are a team and are resolving the issues together. For us to play this role, we need to show more of our pragmatic, creative and strategic side in analysing the regulatory environment, targets, stakeholders, disputes and the goal the business partners seek to achieve.