Team Size: 19

Can you briefly explain how the legal team is structured, highlighting key individuals and their role within the department?

The Google Cloud APAC legal team is dedicated to supporting the rapidly growing Google Cloud business in the Asia Pacific region. I lead the team out of Singapore and have teams across different jurisdictions in the region, focusing on supporting the regional businesses. Key individuals in the Cloud team include my regional leads, Jennifer Koo, based in Singapore, Hanan Bardouh and Jane Englefield in Sydney, Nicholas Mak in Hong Kong, and Vikas Chopra in Gurgaon.

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Google Cloud is on a solid growth trajectory globally with an annual run rate of over US$24bn, 3 times more than 3 years ago. We see similar growth in Asia Pacific, and our key focus is to help the Google Cloud APAC business grow while navigating the varied, dynamic, and complex macro-economic and regulatory landscape in the region. We do this by helping close key commercial transactions and helping the company and our customers navigate the complex regulatory landscapes of today.

We have closed significant commercial deals in all major Asia Pacific markets in the private market, such as Air Asia, Sharechat, Flipkart, Adani, Reliance Jio, GoTo Group, Indosat, Biopharma and Ennoconn, and public sector, in Malaysia and Singapore. We also negotiated major wins for Google in the education space, with Google Classroom rolled out to all government schools in Malaysia, and Chrome used to advance outcomes in the classroom of all state and state-integrated schools in New Zealand.

We also support Google’s investments in technical infrastructure and are responsible for helping our internal and external stakeholders understand what regulations mean for both ourselves and for our customers. Additionally, we keep an eye on the changes in the geopolitical landscape, such as trade tensions and help guide the business around that.

Our everyday work also involves helping regulators, our customers and their legal teams understand how Google Cloud works to bring security and computing power in a scalable, cost effective and compliant way. We support the company in its efforts to stay ahead of regulations, and help the company obtain key certifications for our business.

In an increasingly complex organisation, we are partners to the Google APAC Cloud cross-functional teams in sales, public policy, channels and ecosystems, marketing, and government affairs and public policy. We also work closely with the other regional legal and cross functional teams that support Google’s separate businesses.