About

Known as a banking specialist, Gu Ya Jing has been head of the PRC legal team at BNP Paribas since 2005. Throughout her career Ya Jing believes that she has ‘obtained great experience in dispute resolution’ and in ‘the negotiation and structuring of big project financing’, while supporting the operations of both BNP and a major Chinese state-owned bank. Ya Jing has also made significant operational improvements to the internal workings of the BNP Paribas legal team since joining, explaining that her adoption of a legal database for the department has streamlined routine work through ‘drafting various templates’ and creating ‘legal guidance notes’. In a ‘more aggressive’ business environment, Ya Jing has prioritised ‘face-to-face conversations’ within the department that have allowed the ‘legal department and business to understand each other better [in order to] come up with solutions’. Ya Jing’s relationship with senior management is exceptionally strong, based on her successful combination of legal and business skills: ‘I always provide clear advice to [the CEO’s office] whenever necessary, and also seek their advice from [a] business perspective’ to ensure that projects are executed correctly. If providing the benefit of her experience to up-and-coming in-house counsel, Ya Jing advises that they should attempt to ‘learn and change’ above all else. ‘We cannot stop learning’, she explains, ‘since there are so many new things going on each day [and] the legal environment is changing all the time’. Ya Jing is positive about the future of in-house counsel, believing that companies in China could improve their operations significantly if the profession was ‘more respected’ and provided more opportunity to showcase their skills.