Team size: 33

What are the most significant cases, projects, or transactions that you and your legal team have recently been involved in?

I value the opportunity to be at the forefront of bringing new brands into our portfolio – brands I believe in, with products I am genuinely passionate about. Our acquisition of Compose Coffee in the latter half of 2024 aligns with our commitment to the coffee and tea segment, as well as to franchising. This acquisition serves as our entry point into the rapidly expanding value coffee market in South Korea. Compose Coffee, on track to surpass 3,000 stores by 2025, is focused on serving ‘coffee as coffee should be’ and continuously innovates to reinforce its leadership position. Our recent exciting launch was the ‘V Composed’ series of drinks, developed in collaboration with our brand ambassador, V of BTS.

In the first half of 2025, we also welcomed Tim Ho Wan into the Jollibee Group. This distinguished brand earned its first Michelin star in 2010 and was once recognised as the most affordable Michelin-starred restaurant in the world. With approximately 80 stores and growing, Tim Ho Wan now stands as the flagship brand for Jollibee Group’s Chinese cuisine segment. Personally, I have long been a fan of Tim Ho Wan, even going so far as to hand-carry their Barbecue Pork Buns from Hong Kong to the Philippines before the brand had a presence in Manila!

Just as important as the big deals is our day-to-day collaboration with all functions and business units across the enterprise – co-creating and protecting value as strategic partners and key enablers, while actively contributing to the Jollibee Group’s record performance.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Managing legal matters effectively during periods of instability or crisis requires a proactive approach that integrates thorough preparation into the daily operations of the business, before any issue arises. This entails understanding the business deeply to anticipate legal risks and implementing robust systems and processes to prevent or mitigate their potential adverse impact. By embedding these practices into our regular operations, we create a resilient organisation capable of addressing challenges seamlessly as they occur.

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

The opportunity to grow the legal function of the Jollibee Group alongside the expansion of the business has been a truly unique experience – one that few in-house lawyers have the chance to encounter. I joined as Senior Manager and ‘Officer in Charge’ in 2007. For my first six months, our team consisted of just one lawyer and one paralegal in the Philippines, with some coordination with a paralegal from an acquired company in China.

Today, our legal team has grown to 33 lawyers and paralegals, with offices in six countries. I have played a key role in structuring the organisation, hiring every lawyer, and onboarding and working closely with each head. Our diverse, multinational team now brings a wealth of strengths and perspectives, which we harness to co-create high standards that apply globally while allowing local agility.

Lawyers I hired a few years out of law school as managers are now leading as General Counsels within the Jollibee Group, and some Manila-based lawyers have been individually recognised by Legal 500 as top in-house counsels in the country. Additionally, our Global Office was recognised as one of the top 15 legal teams in Asia, and by Legal 500 as among the top teams in the Philippines. Despite our demanding workload, Legal has achieved some of the highest engagement scores globally within the Jollibee Group in 2024 and 2025.

What have you done to further diversity objectives in your organisation?

Our diverse, multinational team of 33 lawyers and paralegals brings a wealth of strengths and perspectives to the table, united by our commitment to excellence and integrity, and a shared sense of stewardship of the company. High standards, clarity of expectations, and a culture of respect ensure alignment across borders while empowering people to do what they do best and giving them the space to adapt to local realities with agility. Lawyers from our different offices learn from diverse viewpoints, harnessing the best of each other’s expertise to develop global standards – ones that we all own and uphold because we co-created them. By earning trust and building strong relationships – both within our multinational team and with internal and external stakeholders – we foster collaboration that delivers results.