About

Now a legal specialist in commercial transactions, joint ventures, M&A and restructurings Howard Armstrong has always been a gifted academic, having attended Princeton University and Stanford Law School. Between his two periods of study, he spent seven years in the finance sector, which accounts for some of the commercial astuteness that runs throughout his career. After a total of four years as an attorney at San Diego based law firms, he re-entered the financial sector as Western Systems’ chief financial officer between 1993 and 1995. After that he took his first in-house legal position as general counsel for Triple J Enterprises. Clearly a talented individual capable of working in both financial and legal environments, Armstrong was appointed as a partner for law firm Latham & Watkins in 1997, this time staying in the role for 12 years. After further developing his skills in directing commercial, transactional and corporate matters, he moved to his current position of senior vice president for legal at Reliance Industries. In this role, Armstrong is responsible for all commercial legal activities in connection with the company’s $15bn expansion of its Jamnagar refinery complex and its Dahej and Hazira manufacturing plants in Gujarat, India. He manages Reliance’s internal legal group to handle legal and contracting activities with multinational, regional and local licensors, contractors, vendors and service providers. One source had this to say about working with Armstrong: ‘I have never known a lawyer any more brilliant or thorough yet practical than Howard’.