About

Founded in 1884, The Hong Kong Jockey Club is a world famous racing club with an integrated business model, comprising racing, entertainment, a membership club, sports betting and lotteries, as well as charity and community investment. Philana Poon, executive director of legal and compliance, and company secretary of The Hong Kong Jockey Club, manages a team of 17 lawyers and other professional and support staff in a team that is made up of approximately 40 people. The legal and compliance division is split into three departments covering legal, compliance and corporate secretariat. The legal department has two teams with the main one dealing with Hong Kong and international affairs and a mainland Chinese legal team. The compliance department consists of lawyers and other compliance professionals and is responsible for building and enforcing a culture of awareness of compliance with legal and regulatory obligations facing the business. The corporate secretariat unit handles the administration of boards and committees and acts as a liaison between stewards and directors. Since Poon joined the Club three years ago, she has recruited six mainland Chinese qualified lawyers to support the business operational requirements and established the Chinese legal capabilities for both the legal department and the compliance department. Previously, although the Club had operations in China, it had absolutely no in-house legal capabilities in the country. Additionally, Poon has formed a compliance department of experienced lawyers and compliance professionals with experience working in multinational compliance departments of operating companies, as opposed to banks or financial institutions with very specific financial regulatory requirements, and a corporate secretariat staffed with corporate secretarial professionals. The team is supporting the opening of a racecourse and training Centre in Conghua, which opened in August 2018 and is the first world class facility of its type in China. The team is also supporting the construction of a new clubhouse extension building in Happy Valley, Hong Kong which will open in 2020 to provide several new offerings for Club members. The team has also overseen the legal aspects in terms of the development of a wagering business, which is an important addition to the Club’s existing racing product offerings. It also provides legal support to the company’s charity arm which has donated over HK$4bn to the community in the past year along with a HK$3.5bn donation for the construction of the Hong Kong Palace Museum. Discussing her team’s success, Poon emphasises that, ‘a good in-house team must have a combination of a solid commercial, solutions –oriented and business partner approach along with a gatekeeper role’.