About

Joanne Low identifies joining RRJ Management (HK), an investment firm with almost $11bn assets under management, in 2013 as one of the highlights of her career because of the exposure it has given her to multi-billion dollar deals. For example, she was involved in negotiations which saw RRJ as the only non-Chinese direct investor when Sinopec, a Chinese oil and gas company, sold a $17.4bn stake in its retail unit in 2014. Two years later, Low assisted RRJ in raising funds for Tencent, a Chinese technology and investment holding company, for its purchase of SoftBank’s majority stake in gamemaker Supercell Oy, in a deal worth $8.6bn. The transaction is Tencent’s largest acquisition to date and helped Low win industry awards. She believes that the hands-on nature of in-house lawyers in deals like this is what differentiates their work from that of a private practice lawyer; something that Low finds incredibly rewarding. Her skills in conducting and structuring deals has shifted mind-sets of how the legal function is perceived internally, with the function now at the heart of developments from start to finish. Low says that building trust with senior management was crucial to this development, saying ‘[they] see you’re being constructive and creative rather than being restrictive. It makes the [senior management] team see that you are part of the solution‘.