Career Biography

I am currently General Counsel at RGE and oversee legal and compliance matters.

Over the course of my 25-year career, I have worked in Singapore, London, the Netherlands and West Africa (Gabon, Ghana and Nigeria) and built expertise in dealing with challenging legal dilemmas in extremely difficult operating environments. While my primary passion lies in unlocking access to sustainable energy, I enjoy bringing transformative change through building effective legal and compliance teams that thrive in the volatile regulatory and legal environments.

The dynamic operating environment we live in is rife with constant geopolitical change, and economic and regulatory uncertainties. They demand legally sound and sharp lawyers, able to identify and guide business on definitive legal/regulatory issues but flexible in co-creating commercially robust solutions with clients.

For me, processes and systems are key to guide logical thinking and establishing high performing legal teams. As tedious as they may be, these processes are also the final control barriers that keep large, complex organisations compliant and safe. I also believe that investments in employee training and development provide immense returns to an organisation in the long run.

Prior to RGE, I was General Counsel and Company Secretary at Sembcorp Industries, renewables company listed on the SGX Mainboard.

At Sembcorp, I helped build an integrated compliance team for Sembcorp’s global operations and expanded Sembcorp’s legal function to grow in-house capacity in M&A. Partnering with other functions, we also leveraged systematic training and investment in lawyers, compliance, and corporate secretarial teams to set the blueprint for continuous improvement.

RGE manages a diversified global business with over 80,000 employees. Here at RGE, my focus will be building on the strong foundations we already have as a legal team to enhance partnership with the business to forge further growth and success of the business.

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

I’ve been an energy lawyer for more than two decades, working in Asia, Africa, and Europe.

During that time, I’ve had the privilege of going through — and growing through — the rapid but complex energy transition which has dramatically disrupted the energy industry. The transition continues to bring forth opportunities and dilemmas of energy security and climate change, which underpin the societal licence to operate.

As a result of these shifts, my teams and I have been busy with various deals and transformative projects from an ESG perspective, including various cross border renewable and low carbon energy projects and acquisitions, sustainability linked financing options as well as greenfield infrastructure projects in future fuels such as green hydrogen.

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

A crisis is always stressful because of the high stakes and short deadlines involved. I find it very helpful to have a structured approach to the key legal issues to address, the allocation of deliverables and the deadlines to enable a collective decision to be made.

I also believe that in times of crisis, communication is critical. Speaking directly to the lawyers to align legal positions and the stakeholders to ensure we are addressing their top of mind concerns is key for me.

What do you think are the most important attributes for a modern in-house counsel to possess?

The ability to synthesise multiple pieces of incomplete information and uncertainty to provide sound advice to clients and a sense of humour to diffuse tense situations.

What is a cause, business or otherwise, that you are passionate about? Why is this?

I’ve served as a director and a volunteer on the board of the Make-A-Wish Foundation for more than 23 years. I’ve also been involved in various children’s and women’s charities, ranging from Boys Town, Pertapis Home for Girls, the Rise Above halfway house for prison inmates returning to society, etc., throughout the past two decades.

I empathise with those in difficult circumstances because it takes incredible strength to break free from generational poverty.

I therefore volunteer because I feel that it is incumbent on me to pay it forward to my community.

Without serving them, I would not have served my true purpose, which lies beyond just being a lawyer.