Can you sum up the team culture or ethos, and give us a breakdown of what makes your legal team function so well?

I would like to sum up our team culture in an acronym, CORE to reflect how we discharge our core duties in supporting our business in the management of legal and compliance risks.

Committed – We built the legal & compliance function of Tricor Malaysia in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. Being new joiners to the company, we had to grapple with numerous legal & compliance issues when we were fully working remotely. The team displayed the highest levels of commitment in rolling-up their sleeves to solve these challenges in order to facilitate business. To this end, I am most grateful to Ms Tong Siew Hua and Ms Melissa Chong who have displayed the highest level of commitment in serving our stakeholders.

Objective-minded – Our stakeholders turn to us when they are in a situation of crisis and panic that needs urgent resolution. In order to effectively assist them, we believe in being objective-minded looking at the issue from multiple angles and to recommend the best solutions.

Relationships – Unlike external counsels, we serve only one client. But that one client has many stakeholders. The touchstone of the in-house counsel is our deep understanding of the business which enables us to provide commercially practical solutions. Delivering consistent and sound advice to our stakeholders enables us to build deeper relationships and trust. This helps us have our finger on the pulse of the business and able to detect risks and take preventive action in resolving it.

Excellence – “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” I am incredibly fortunate to be surrounded with colleagues who live by this and are high performers in delivering excellent service to our stakeholders and colleagues around us. My colleague, Ms Tong Siew Hua has consistently performed and delivered quality solutions to our stakeholders and played an integral part to our inclusion in the Legal 500 SEA GC Powerlist 2023.