Team size: 14  

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

Perhaps the most significant project I worked on was the first sustainability loan of THB3bn to a Thai real estate developer. 

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?  

To increase productivity and efficiency of working on legal documentation, we manage to finalize user guide for legal documents (e.g. how to negotiate, revise the clause and etc) and FAQs for commonly found issues so that repeating issues is dealt with in more efficient manner. This reduces some of the timespent and workload of the team. 

How do you see the general counsel role evolving in Thailand over the next five to ten years?  

General counsel cannot continue the status quo. We must evolve alongside of the context of social, economic and technological advancements. There are many new aspects in the market now that involves legal. For example, GEN AI how does it play a role in legal community, how can we make use of it and how to ensure that we are not left behind when Gen AI is commonly used. In addition, sustainability is a global agenda, everyone including legal community is to play a part of it. 

Which recent political, economic or regulatory changes have impacted your work the most in recent years?  

The economic slowdown and downturn, alongside an increase in digital scamming, increases the number of issues which affect the consumer protection side. New legislation passed to lessen the impact of these on consumers create challenges for our legal team in ensuring business as usual.  

How do you motivate and manage your legal team well? 

Working is learning both on technical and soft skills aspects- as in house counsel you must do well on both aspects. I keep motivating my team but ensure that they have good learning curve of course, with some level of stability and comfort that if things go wrong, we will fix it together. Raise your hand and escalate, speak up so that I know what they think and the forum and doors are always open. 

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

It is not overplayed or underplayed; to me, legal must adapt to whatever developments occur. At the current point, we must ensure that we understand and evolve accordingly to stay relevant. AI will only truly affect the legal world when we do not understand it, and get left behind by the pace of technological change.