About

Involved in a number of important and complex projects including a major hospital re-development and airport and rail projects in Hong Kong, as well as monorail, sky tower, and wind farm schemes across the continent, the legal department of business conglomerate WSP in Asia is active in a broad range of front-end and back-end legal services. The team, which is comprised of five professionals and led by head of legal for Asia Chee Hoong Pang, operates with several core values that have been agreed upon and practiced by its members. According to Pang these values are based upon diversity, including ‘diversity of backgrounds, diversity of voices, diversity of thoughts and diversity of experiences’. He further explains that ‘in our experience, balancing a shared sense of purpose with a good degree of autonomy helps to drive the high-performance culture we all strive for. But that single silver thread which runs through it all and weaves them into a story of success – is communication. Great communication is fundamental to great leadership’. Comfortable with embracing legal technology, the team utilises BluePrint, LegalTracker, Xakia and NetDoc, and according to Pang technology plays a ‘significant role’ in the performance of the functions of the team. Amidst a number of challenges the team deals with is the continuing growth of WSP’s business, and in order to provide the optimal service the legal department works “hand in glove” to provide support to relevant business lines. Pang states: ‘The secret of the team’s success is running a relatively small but effective team that is fully integrated with WSP Asia’s business activities. The team excel at working closely with portfolio managers while also devising key legal and risk management policies and training the personnel across several countries within Asia’.