Team size: 25 to 30

Key team members: Janette Loh, Amrit Jiwan, Catherine Lau, Thamtarana Nontarom, Gian Avenido, Kevin Hsu, Daphne Won, Sutirtha Sengupta, Sho Miyamoto, Yosuke Sugata, Natalie Lim, Sunita Kumari

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

We are a key pillar to building sustainable business growth by ensuring that our company’s growth and profit are protected and sustained through compliance and effective risk management. In the past few years, the team has spent considerable time helping the business embark on new business opportunities and revenue streams.

As the primary party responsible for crisis management during the period of movement controls, the pandemic has given us the opportunity to collaborate with various stakeholders and drive business continuity and risk management strategies benefitting from legal expertise. This has contributed to stakeholders’ lasting appreciation of the value of timely interaction with the legal team on the company’s strategic plans at various levels.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

While the benefits of legal artificial intelligence and machine learning may vary depending on individual organisation needs, it remains to be seen if elements of expertise, ethics and humanity can ever be replaced. It remains clear that knowledge is a crucial driver for any technological advancement or professional development, even in its simple form. Yet, knowledge without usage and application is of little value. We strive to continue developing strategies to ensure a systemic collection of knowledge and experience and how to utilise our knowledge database to develop cost-effective legal risk management strategies for the company. With individual improvement in professional quality, collective improvement of productivity will follow.

We believe in leveraging technology to harness greater efficiencies. Our team has successfully completed a three-year road map for implementing a series of e-workflow and document management platforms that now helps our region strengthen compliance and knowledge infrastructure as well as enhance productivity.

Can you sum up the team culture or ethos?

Entrusting the team with a strong sense of ownership in their roles as strategic business advisors has helped draw out the best in each team member and reinforce the value legal brings to the business.

“Delighting you always” is a tagline synonymous with Canon in Asia. This mind-set is also important internally. At the frontline, each member is constantly encouraged and expected to provide quality services, add commercial value, and know the customer, both internal and external, well.

The team should also always be ready for new markets and growth and continue embracing rapidly developing technology. We abide by these principles to build strong relationships with our internal and external clients and strong professional values such as open communication, fearless determination, sensitivity and discernment, adaptability, resilience, and accountability.