Azmi & Associates

Corporate & Commercial

Senior Counsel

Airene Ho graduated from the University of East London with an LL.B (Hons) in 1995 and was admitted to the Malaysian Bar in 1997. She practiced as an Advocate & Solicitor for 7 years before transitioning into the corporate sector, where she spent for 2 decades serving as a General Counsel / Head of Legal. She has since returned to legal practice. In addition to her legal qualification, Airene holds an MBA, has passed the Patent Agent examination, and is a MIM Certified Professional in Intellectual Property Management (MIM-CPIPM).

During her 7 years in legal practice, Airene represented a diverse clientele in complex legal matters, including corporate and commercial transactions, intellectual property, and litigation. Notably, she represented a well-known U.S. software company and successfully secured a landmark software piracy decision against copyright infringers, which received media coverage in Malaysian newspapers. One of Airene’s matters, in which she successfully defended an appeal involving the assignment of debt, was reported: Arab-Malaysian Bank Bhd v Teamsystems Interior Sdn Bhd [2004] 6 CLJ (Supp) 232. She also served as the team lead advising Pengurusan Danaharta Nasional Berhad, a public company established by the Government of Malaysia as the national asset management company to revitalise the Malaysian financial sector by buying non-performing loans (NPLs) from financial institutions and maximize their recovery value during the 1997 – 2000 economic crisis.

Over the course of her 2 decades as an in-house counsel, Airene provided global legal leadership across the real estate and life sciences / biotechnology (encompassing human health, animal health and sustainable agriculture) sectors. She has acted as a strategic business partner to Boards and Founders and was part of the Senior Leadership Team, delivering commercially aligned solutions to support organisational growth and resilience. Her experience includes leading high-impact, cross-border transactions in multi-jurisdictional regulatory environments, including acquisitions, investments and divestments, joint ventures, strategic collaborations and the spin-out of start-up companies. She has also managed interdependent complex cross-border litigation and built legal teams from the ground up, establishing robust legal architecture for the organisations. In addition, Airene was part of a cross-functional team that successfully registered a project under VERRA, gaining hands-on experience in voluntary carbon market mechanics, validation frameworks and credit issuance pathways.

Drawing on her complementary experience as both an Advocate & Solicitor and an in-house counsel, Airene is particularly passionate about transactions at the intersection of corporate, commercial and intellectual property law, where business objectives are closely aligned with environmental and sustainability priorities.

English, Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysia

Advocate and Solicitor of the High Court of Malaya

LL. B(Hons), University of East London, 1995