Team size: 16 

What are the most significant cases or transactions that you have recently been involved in?

Over the past 12 months, my team and I have ramped up partnerships and undertaken a variety of growth endeavours. 

From a partnership perspective, we have collectively onboarded over 50 new partners within the Lightnet network in the last 12 months. This includes entering specific and negotiated remittance networks, as well as conducting simplified or enhanced customer due diligence on each of these partners. In most cases, this due diligence involves financial institutions, making the matters far more complex.

We have undergone licensing endeavours in Lithuania, successfully obtaining our VASP registrations. We have now commenced licensing efforts in Hong Kong and Dubai. Over the last year, we have also kickstarted our remittance licenses issued by the Bank of Thailand and undergone our first AML audit from the Anti-Money Laundering Office in Thailand without adverse findings. Last year, we also undertook a significant investment closing into our group by LDA Capital in the US, which has committed around US$50m for our growth in the Southeast Asian region. We have also pre-negotiated six majority acquisition term-sheets and MOUs for expansion across the Southeast Asian region, including the potential takeover of a Thai Publicly Listed company in Thailand. 

With our commercial efforts ramping up, we are now processing over US$130m through our group’s systems every month, compared to approximately US$20m per month last year. This exponential increase in transactions means that our internal controls must be strictly complied with, and hyper vigilance is needed when undertaking large-value transactions across our network. This includes putting in place highly robust due diligence requirements, contract screenings and reviews, and transaction monitoring procedures, despite undertaking the group expansion and fundraising efforts outlined above.

How do you motivate and manage your legal team well?

In a startup environment, legal and compliance matters are conducted at an extremely high pace, and the role of the legal and compliance department requires fast turnaround times. Due to the high pressure to close deals and generate revenue as quickly as possible, a small mistake could cost you in the long run. A high-pressure environment with tight timelines is not typically conducive to self-motivation.

Instead, my team looks to me as their source of motivation, and the best way I have found to motivate the team is to take on the workload and deliver by example. If the team sees the leader working late, staying motivated, and delivering on time, they will follow this example. I also interface with my team on a one-to-one basis, showing them that they are not alone in the matters they handle, and that I am here to help and understand how they want their career to develop.

Furthermore, transparency about the company’s direction and my discussions with management enables them to see where the organisation is headed and what sort of workload they can expect. Additionally, allowing the team some necessary downtime by taking them to lunch and post-work functions where they can be rewarded for their hard work is important. 

On the team management front, I effectively manage my team with the use of tools such as ASANA. Given that my team is located around the world, it is important for me to have a bird’s eye view of what each member is doing and their current workload so that tasks can be allocated evenly. If a team member is overwhelmed, reallocating work can be done efficiently using tools like ASANA. At any point during a specific matter, I can quickly identify issues or roadblocks, enabling me to intervene and clear those roadblocks to ensure the matter gets over the line.

Are the effects of AI on the legal world overplayed, or underplayed?

Given the present state of AI, there is certainly some functionality that can assist in driving workflow and speeding up deliverables within the organisation. However, beyond that, at the current time, the effects on the legal world are overplayed. That said, I am still a proponent of the good old-fashioned approach to documentation, as it builds experience and diligence. I generally do not have any issues if my team wishes to use AI for certain tasks, provided confidential information is not being passed through AI. The same goes for compliance and automation, and reviews done by AI. While AI may be good at picking up trends on transactions or missing documentation, the human element of intuition and judgment is something that will always be required when assessing transactions for money laundering and terrorist financing. There will always be a need for human intervention in the payment compliance function, regardless of how fast AI develops and whether large datasets are available to the AI.