About

After seven years in private practice with Gouldens Solicitors (now known as Jones Day), during which time he established their representative office in Hong Kong, Jonathan Collins moved in-house to Jardine Fleming, an Asian regional investment banking operation jointly owned by Flemings and the Jardine Matheson Group. Jardine Fleming was taken over by JP Morgan Chase in 2000, with Collins staying in his role until 2001 when he got his ‘big break’ by securing the head of group legal role for the overall Jardine Matheson Group. Collins believes that his ‘drive and execution… along with being very business-like and business minded’ led to the considerable achievement of being made head of legal for one of Hong Kong’s largest blue chip conglomerates at the age of 34. Once at Jardine Matheson Group, Collins explains that he made significant improvements to their internal legal function: ‘When I started at Jardines, [the function] was very old-fashioned and very reactive rather than being a proactive and relevant legal partner in a dynamic and multi-faceted business environment’. After the completion of a series of major divestments within the Jardine Matheson Group, Collins desired a new challenge and was invited by senior management to take on a purely business role as managing director of engineering company Jardine Schindler’s regional operations. His time in this role is a perfect illustration of Collins’ desire to be an excellent businessperson as well as a leading legal professional. Six years later, after driving market leading growth in South East Asia for Jardine Schindler, he moved back to a more broad general counsel position at Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) Asia, a leading insurance and risk solutions company, with additional responsibilities as head of risk and compliance and head of M&A. At JLT Asia, Collins has built a risk and compliance framework from scratch, established systematic processes maintained by dedicated staff and successfully completed seven acquisitions and one divestment in four years. Throughout his career Collins has made efforts to develop team members, encouraging ‘junior staff to move around other businesses entities, creating career development opportunities’. He explains that ‘in America so many GCs end up running businesses’, but that ‘you don’t see that so much in Hong Kong’; the exposure to business roles is something that could help change that.