About

Having begun trading in China in 1963, the Dutch multinational life and materials science company DSM now employs over 4,000 people in the country and has sales of over $2bn. Dealing mainly with corporate law, foreign investment, labour law and contract law, Catherine Wang was appointed general counsel for DSM China in 2007, in large part because of her experiences in managing legal, compliance and corporate affairs for multinational companies. With her legal department of eight members, Wang has been responsible for closing several recent transactions in China, including the acquisition of Aland (China) to strengthen DSM’s vitamin C production position in 2015, and a joint venture deal with NHU to enhance its offering in the high performance engineering plastics space. Internally Wang also led the team on capital expenditure projects and established the Women Inspiration Network. Immediately prior to her current role, Wang was the head of legal and corporate affairs department for East China at Microsoft for almost three years. Between 1998 and 2004 she was the general counsel and company secretary at Nexans China (formerly Alcatel Cable China) in her first in-house role. Having also worked as an attorney for 10 years and a law lecturer at Su Zhou University for nine years, her career is congruent with her motto of ‘keep learning, keep improving’.