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Southeast Asia 2019

Tom Thomas

General counsel | Agoda

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Southeast Asia 2019

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Tom Thomas

General counsel | Agoda

Tom Thomas - Southeast Asia 2017

General counsel | Agoda

The multi-lingual and diligent general counsel Tom Thomas is the current general counsel of Agoda, a part of The Priceline Group and a world leading online travel and related services...

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About

Originally assuming a role with Agoda in 2009, Tom Thomas had previously been operating in an in-house capacity with Huntsman Corporation in Europe and Asia, prior to which he was an associate in Linklaters’ banking and finance department in Brussels and London. ‘Moving in-house from private practice was the first highlight of my legal career’, he says. ‘Having to unlearn some of the law firm approaches and operate in the real world of an in-house team was an interesting learning curve and was an enriching experience’. Similarly, being afforded the opportunity to display his considerable talents in a new region and industry with Agoda is also considered by Thomas to be a particularly treasured milestone. ‘Moving to Asia and starting at Agoda when there was no legal team was the number one highlight in my overall career’, he says. ‘Getting to know an e-commerce company that was still in startup mode although it had been acquired two years prior by a US listed company. Adapting to a high-velocity, high-energy and fast-changing company was energising (and exhausting at times). It reinforced my conviction that a good legal counsel or advisor needs to help think with the business and help find solutions rather than raising obstacles’. When discussing how he went about building the legal team upon taking on the role, Thomas favoured a ground-up strategy: ‘The first priority was creating the appropriate level of awareness and ensuring the business knew how to work with the legal function. Trust-building in an incremental and humble way was crucial to ensuring success. The team gradually expanded but was initially quite focused on commercial support and legal advice or regulatory action in a more reactive way, but has shifted into a more proactive mode overtime. I was also responsible for the people (HR) function for the first three years of my career at Agoda’. His impressive record of project work in support of the company’s objectives is evidence of the excellent job he has done so far, which looks set to continue into the future.

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