Team size: 12

What are the most significant cases, projects and/or transactions that you and/or your legal team have recently been involved in?

We had a fair number of acquisitions of green field projects in Japan and Australia for solar photovoltaic and battery energy storage systems, which projects also require offtake and balancing agreements to be in place, along with project finance and construction documents all “speaking to each other”. We also experienced firsthand how utterly challenging it is to work on cross-border electricity import projects. Divestments also kept us busy, especially in markets with regulatory uncertainty and long-term risks which could not be adequately mitigated. In markets where we have large operational projects, the focus has been on ensuring the team is able to respond promptly to day-to-day operational issues, addressing unexpected regulatory changes that adversely affect tariff prices, as well as manage disputes with project sellers, suppliers and contractors.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

While we have developed in-house expertise, corporate support functions are constantly being challenged in the way we work. We find that it’s crucial to not only establish strong relationships with law firms in every jurisdiction we operate in, such firms are familiar with our business and must be able to step in at very short notice, given that in-house teams are forced to be very lean without built-in redundancies.

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

After eightg years and a half in private practice, it has been an eye-opener working first for a Singapore government-linked company, followed by a US industrial, and now a European energy company. 15 years in an in-house role has provided me with significant exposure to different management styles and work cultures, without having to relocate overseas. I have been fortunate to not only lead teams, but also to build one from scratch.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on that you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful of?

The need to adopt technology has been at the top of the agenda since early 2015 and this has accelerated rapidly in the past year. But we shouldn’t follow trends blindly, without knowing what is truly useful to the company. We prefer to allow others to test the latest technologies before we consider them, especially since they don’t come cheap and may not work with legacy systems. One major issue we face is with the security of company data when such tech tools are used, for which we are exploring different options.

General counsel often speak of the need to be strategic to reach the pinnacle of the profession. What does being strategic mean to you?

It means being able to advance your views in a simple manner, having an appreciation of which risks are really material to the company and knowing the appropriate juncture to speak-up. When your CEO or other Management team remember to check-in with you, you know that your opinion matters.