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Join the Celebration!Date & Time: from 6.30pm, on 30 May 2019
Hong Kong
The In-House Community Counsels of the Year Awards Ceremony 2019 will honour counsels from across the region, that have pursued excellence in their roles. All commended counsels and in-house legal teams will receive their certificate of recognition on the night.
During the ceremony we will also announce our overall industry and specialist category winners, as well as the overall In-House Community Team of the Year, In-House Counsel of the Year, External Counsel of the Year, Deal Firm, and Visionary Firm Awards.
To book your seats for this very special gathering (spouses welcome) simply complete the form below.
Note: If you would like any logistical advice on staying in Hong Kong, please kindly contact Ms. Wendy Chan at wendy.chan@inhousecommunity.com.
Sponsors for Counsels of the Year Awards & Celebration 2019
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Welcome to the Delegate Resources Hub for the thirteenth annual In-House Congress Middle East, Dubai
Date: 27 February 2019 (Wednesday)
Location: The Adress Dubai Mall
Please find links to:
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Please note, we can only include here the materials made available to us by the co-hosting firms.
If you would like to have a copy of any of the presentations, you must attend the event. Please ask the presenting firms or speakers directly at the Congress. Please note and respect that not all presenters wish to make their presentations available in hard-copy form.
If you would like a personal introduction to any of the above, or you have any further enquiries, please contact us via congress@inhousecommunity.com. We look forward to meeting you at the event.
By Jay Shaw, Founder and Chairman of Praxonomy
There is no such thing as 100 percent digital safety but by learning good practices and taking simple steps to protect yourself, you can make it much harder for anyone to hack into your computer or eavesdrop on your phone calls or online communications.
According to a report from an expert group working with Germany’s Federal Crime Office, a third of small and medium businesses have already been hacked. You can read the report here:
Germany: Third of small and mid-sized companies have been hacked
What’s true in Germany is likely to be true everywhere, which suggests that it is just about guaranteed that either you and your fellow board members have already been hacked or that you will be targeted soon.
So, if you haven’t started already, you should start thinking about how you do what you do online. This does not mean that you need to become a digital security expert. Rather, it means that you should take reasonable steps to keep safe.
Here is a list of suggestions, each of which is easy and quick (and in many cases free):
If you’re using an Apple computer, the built-in drive encryption option is called FileVault. It takes a little while to spin up the first time but once it’s done, your computer is very, very hard for just about anyone to crack. The Windows equivalent is Bitlocker.
Activating drive encryption costs nothing and will keep your data safe should you ever lose (or temporarily lose physical control of) your computer. It’s well worth doing. While you’re at it, turn on the built-in firewall option, which will not limit your Internet use in any way but will keep stray programs from reporting out and from downloading who knows what in the background.
Both Windows and macOS support automatic back-ups. Buy yourself a large-capacity portable hard drive (they’re cheap as bread these days), plug it in and let the back-up software do its thing. This way, if you are hacked, you can back down from the last clean back-up and consider yourself lucky to have dodged a bullet.
I use ClamXAV for my Mac. It acts like a sentinel for incoming data. Once in a while I set it to scan everything and just let it run all night. Over the years it has found and disabled quite a few viruses, mostly viruses that people have unknowingly sent me via email.
Windows 10 comes with Windows Defender built in, which, according to reviews, isn’t a bad antivirus solution. Some friends and colleagues use it alone. Others use it along with an anti-malware program. Yet other people use third-party solutions for everything. Almost anything is better than nothing so choose something and make sure it’s installed and working.
Anti-virus applications are less common for mobile operating systems because mobile systems are generally better protected against viruses and malware than desktop systems. In general, iOS is thought to do a better job against viruses and malware than Android. That said, no system is perfect. You should be very careful when choosing which apps to download regardless of operating system. Review your app “portfolio” regularly and delete any apps you no longer use. And don’t click on anything sent to your phone via SMS, iMessage or email from an unknown party.
Also, make sure you turn on auto-update for your operating systems as well as for your phones and apps so that you always have the latest security patches installed.
I used to know passwords. No more. Now I use Padlock, an open-source solution, and let it generate random 10- to 20-character passwords for each of the more than 60 services I login to on a regular basis. I have Padlock on my laptop, on my phone and in the cloud. All three are set to synchronize on launch, in effect serving as back-ups for each other. I also export everything in plain text to a USB drive once or twice a year and put the USB drive in my safety deposit box at the bank. This way, if I die my family and colleagues can still access the business and other services for which I am (or will have been) responsible.
Along with making compulsive use of a good password manager, you should opt for two-factor authentication (2FA) wherever you can. You can use a stand-alone device like Nitrokey or YubiKey, a software application like Authy or Google Authenticator or have the service message a one-time-use code (usually a six-digit number) to your phone or email whenever you login. However you do it, a two-factor solution will always be more secure than single-factor authentication.
Companies that have gone 2FA have cut credentialing hacks by impressive margins. Google gave a Yubikey to every employee to stop phishing attacks. It literally cut the incidence to zero. These device keys are not expensive and they can be used with laptops, tablets and smartphones.
Both Microsoft and Apple are looking to “no password” credentialing solutions. But switching channels by itself may not be orders of magnitude better than current single factor authentication. A code sent to your smartphone is good but would be much better if it were paired with a strong password. Of course biometrics such as fingerprints and Face ID can serve as powerful authentication components too. But for critical files and services you may want to at least pair biometrics with something else.
Last week at dinner my 15-year-old daughter logged on to her 13-year-old sister’s iPhone with Face ID. A classmate’s mother can do the same with her daughter’s iPhone. Apple says that Face ID technology is not “twin safe” but neither my daughters nor their friend and her mother are identical matches – not by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not just face recognition that needs more work. Fingerprint recognition has been cracked, as have voiceprints. The bottom line is that no biometric recognition framework is foolproof. 2FA is the smart move.
In fact, a very-high-security authentication framework would make use of at least three things: something you know, something you have and something you are – for example, a password, a physical key of some kind (or a code sent to your smartphone or sent via email or else generated by a stand-alone software application), along with a voiceprint, fingerprint or Face ID.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) sends your digital communications via secure tunnel to a server which then anonymizes your requests and sends them on to the services you want to access. The target services will still be able to profile you (to some extent) but nobody looking for you on the network can see what websites, email servers or other online services you’re accessing. This is powerful data privacy protection and a must-have for all of your devices.
There are many good VPN services. They are all pretty cheap and the sector is well reviewed so you have your choice of provider. I use ProtonVPN, not because it’s the best, though it certainly is one of the best, but rather because ProtonVPN is a sister company to ProtonMail, and I can use both services with one subscription. Torguard also offers both VPN and secure email services.
Here at Praxonomy we use Kolab Now, a great email and general business collaboration tools service. Note however that even highly secure email services are still susceptible to some data leakage, not the content of individual emails so much as information about who sent the email to whom, when it was sent and whether or not the email contained attachments. This is “heading metadata” and is quite difficult to hide. But as long as you’re not a global celebrity, high government official, journalist or human rights activist looking to hide absolutely everything, even your metadata, a secure email service will more than suffice to protect your sensitive content. People in very high-risk classes can use yet other options, like dark-web email services, but those options fall outside the scope of this discussion.
Keep in mind that it’s easy enough to create a new domain name such as www.board-yourcompanyname.com and point the domain to your new email service so that you end up with email addresses that look like firstname.lastname@board-yourcompanyname.com, that is to say, like normal corporate email addresses.
You might also consider installing GPG Suite on your Mac or one of the Windows equivalents such as Gpg4win on your PC to encrypt the content of your emails. Get the whole board to do it. With email content encryption, even if you cannot move to a separate email service, you can still protect the body content of your email conversations so that prying eyes cannot see what the board is discussing.
Whatever mass-market messaging application you’re using now, stop and replace it with one of the high-security messaging applications. There are several options, some at no or low cost, and they are good.
Telegram is a Dubai-based service founded by expatriate Russians. It has millions of users around the world. One of my colleagues tells me that it is the best general messaging service he has ever used. The Russian government keeps trying to shut it down so the Telegram team must be doing something right.
Wickr has a great reputation among corporates, as does Silent Circle. At Praxonomy we use Wire, which is absolutely excellent. We are big, big fans. At home I use Wire when I need to screen-share or do video calls and Signal for plain old texting and voice calls. Signal is a beautiful, easy-to-use application that reportedly made one senior computer scientist cry when he saw just how elegant the code is (it’s open source, as are Wire, Wickr and Silent Phone – Telegram is not open source but does have an open API).
Use one of these messaging services. There is no good reason not to.
As for browsers, Chrome sends a great deal of information straight back to Google. According to a recent article by The New York Times, Chrome on Android sends your location details back to Google up to 300 times a day. Safari is a bit stiff in regard to set-up options. Firefox is just about right but even Firefox needs to be set up properly. Look carefully at the privacy settings. There are always trade-offs between safety and ease of use. Don’t be afraid to experiment. You may want to use a “no track” search engine like Duck Duck Go instead of Google or Bing. You may want to clear cookies and history on logoff. Keep trying the set-up options until you get to what you need.
There are other browsers, both chromium- and Firefox-based, with more privacy controls, Pale Moon, Waterfox and Brave being some of the better known options. Microsoft recently announced that the new Microsoft Edge will be chromium-based. This will likely work well without automatic data sharing with Google, which can only be a good thing.
Tresorit is a truly impressive, end-to-end-encrypted cloud storage and sharing application. We recommend it for board use. What we don’t recommend is use of unencrypted or partly-encrypted mass-market cloud storage applications, even if they are free.
Even if you don’t use a service like Tresorit, you should consider encrypting sensitive board files before attaching them to emails. PDFs can be encrypted, as can Microsoft Office, Open Office and Libre Office documents. Many people do not know that password-protected encryption is an option for common file types. Try it. It’s not so hard to do.
Another possibility is to use applications like GPG Suite’s Services options (control-click while selecting the document), which provide military-grade encryption for documents and files on a public / private key basis, meaning that only selected recipients can decrypt the file.
There is a whole world of ultra-high-end protection that the law-abiding, very careful user can adopt: the Tor Browser and Network, Tails, Haven, Veracrypt – the list goes on. But these options are steps too far for most of us. The recommendations above are more than enough for most board members (and most other people too).
Keep in mind that the single best move you can make to keep out of harm’s way is to exercise care. An attitude of healthy skepticism goes a long way when it comes to keeping yourself safe. Don’t visit dodgy websites. Don’t click on attachments or URLs in emails from people you don’t know. Even if you do know the sender check the extended heading information. Any bad actor can append a familiar name to a sketchy email address. Don’t assume that the voice on the phone is the person the voice claims to be. Don’t click on phone message icons or URLs from strangers. In short, don’t make yourself an easy target.
By being careful and taking some simple, easy steps you can make yourself and your board much harder targets to hack.
And of course your next best move would be to take a good look at secure board portal options.
Praxonomy is cloud-based software built for Boards of Directors. The Praxonomy board portal digitises and streamlines your board and meeting processes all in one dedicated, secure platform.
Special offer: Praxonomy is pleased to offer friends and members of the In-House Community a 15% discount on your first year subscription. Simply quote “AMCPRAX19” (offer valid until June 30, 2019).
Click here for more information or to request a demo.
About the author: Jay Shaw is the Founder and Chairman of Praxonomy. Jay is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years experience in the IT industry. Prior to founding Praxonomy, he was the Co-founder and CEO of NetDimensions, a London Stock Exchange AIM listed enterprise software company. Jay also serves as the Non-executive Chairman of SandSIV Group, a software and services company based in Zurich, Switzerland.
and support the In-House Community
The In-House Community Jade Membership has been created in response to the demands of senior counsel in our community who asked us to provide an ‘elite’ membership option, where they could benefit from a higher-level of mutual engagement, and take greater advantage of the unique training, networking and information sharing across the region, that only we can provide.
For a relatively small annual fee, we estimate that you can benefit from thousands of dollars of savings through mining the collective experience of your peer General Counsel in the areas of:
Why join now? Because today’s corporate law and legal services environment is in constant flux, and the need to embrace change, and garner the ability to deal with new challenges means in-house legal departments now need to look at their world from a more practical standpoint, and ensure they are benefiting from the shared experiences of their peers. Thus, the In-House Community Jade Membership
For Jade Member General Counsel
Membership and access to the In-House Community GC Linkedin Group – joining a true peer to peer group conversation where you can benefit from shared knowledge and the exchange of ideas on an open or confidential basis on a wide variety of issues, mining the collective experience of your peer General Counsel across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and beyond; andFor all Jade Members
Plus: Special offers from premium services providers such as docQbot and Praxonomy board portal [see current offer here].
Enjoy the benefits, support your legal team and the In-House Community
*Members of the ‘In-House Community Advisory Board’ will be true Thought-leaders in the Community. You will be asked to take part in an exclusive annual discussion and a survey leading to a White Paper and report, which will shape not only our own forums over the following year, but will help inform industry leaders and regulators as to the thought’s and needs of the leading minds in corporate law.
For more information, contact tim.gilkison@inhousecommunity.com
More than 90 major in-house teams in Asia, the Middle East and South Africa have submitted to be long-listed for the In-House Community Counsels of the Year, 2019. (#IHCawards2019)
Competing counsel include teams from:
Aboitiz Equity Ventures; Aboitiz Power Corporation; Abu Dhabi Global Market; Accenture Middle East; ACWA Power; AEON (M); AFGRI Group; Agoda Services; Al Dahra Group; Al Maya Group; Alexander Forbes Group Holdings; Asian Development Bank; Aujan Group Holding; Australia and New Zealand Banking Group; Baiyin Nonferrous (Beijing) International Investment; Bank of the Philippine Islands; Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts; BASF; Blue Pool Capital; Carrier; CBRE; China CITIC Bank International; China International Capital Corporation (Hong Kong); China Machinery Engineering Corp; China Travel Service (Holdings) Hong Kong; CIMB Group; COFCO Packaging; Convergys Philippines; COSCO SHIPPING Ports; Cushman & Wakefield; Damansara Realty; DNV GL; Dubai Airport Free Zone Authority; Edelweiss Alternative Assets; Ernst & Young; Essilor Amera; Far East Organization; FedEx Express International; Ferrero Trading Lux; Flash Entertainment; Fresenius Medical Care Investment (China); Galaxy Entertainment Group; Gartner; GMR Group; Grab; Guotai Junan International Holdings; Heineken Asia Pacific; Hyundai Engineering & Construction; ICBC International Holdings; Intouch Holdings; J M Huber Corporation; JD.com Group; Kellogg; Korea Exchange; Korea Gas Corporation; Lazada Group; Lear Corporation Asia Pacific; Life Healthcare Group; Linfox International Group; Mahindra & Mahindra; Malayan Banking Group; Malaysia Airports Consultancy Services; Manila Electric Company; Manulife (International); Maxis Group; Melco Resorts & Entertainment; Mizuho Bank; MTR Corporation; Nexperia; Nord Anglia Education; Petronet LNG; Prudential Vietnam Assurance; Siemens Indonesia; PTT Public Company; PVH Asia; REKSO Group; Saint-Gobain (China) Investment; Sanofi (China) Investment; SAP Asia; Schneider Electric; Seddiqi Holding; SHUAA Capital Psc; Singapore Press Holdings; Sinovation Ventures; Skechers China; Smilegate Holdings; State Grid International Development; Sun Pharmaceutical Industries; Swiss Re Asia; Taikang Insurance Group; Takeda (China) Holdings; Telstra International; United Energy Group; WSP (Asia); Yum! Brands; and Zaluvida Corporate.
The nomination period is now closed.
The winners of the In-House Teams and Counsels of the Year will be independently judged and announced in May.
The winning legal teams, and counsel within, will be able to demonstrate a majority of the following:
The In-House Community Counsels of the Year Awards are generously supported by Marsh and Hughes-Castell
For more information on the awards, please contact:
Yvette Tan: yvette.tan@inhousecommunity.com
For sponsorship opportunities, please contact:
Rahul Prakash: rahul.prakash@inhousecommunity.com
The Women in Law Group is specifically for professionally-active women lawyers, and its purpose is to provide a network where active women lawyers can be Mentors or Mentees to other women lawyers, and also share relevant information on the subjects of law and the business of law and thus aid their legal careers. It is part of the In-House Community Jade Membership programme.
Note, some of our mentors are also mentees
Mentors listed by city:
For more on our Women in Law Group, please contact Yvette Tan at yvette.tan@inhousecommunity.com
Click here to visit our Women in Law Hub
Asia Legal Inno’ Tech Forum will return to Singapore in 2019. The Forum brings together in-house counsel, private practice lawyers, legal entrepreneurs, innoavtion managers and other legal professionals for a day in Singapore to further the legal innovation and technology dialogue.
The forum has become a platform for legal professionals in Singapore and nearby ASEAN jurisdictions to address challenges they face with internal and external stakeholders when trying a different approach to work. The dialogue also consists of best practices in developing an innovation culture in the legal department, shifting dynamics of the relationship between in-house and private practice lawyers, legal tech solutions available to both and talks about future of legal profession.
Topics which in-house counsel and private practice lawyers are looking to discuss at the 2019 Asia Legal Inno’ Tech Forum are:
The conversation around legal innovation and technology is ever evolving in Asia. The Forum will provide a great platform for both providers and buyers of legal services to address this evolution.
2019 Sponsors:
Registrations start for the day. Please bring along your business card.
Welcome remark by Rahul Prakash, Publisher, In-House Community/Asian-mena Counsel
Opening Keynote Speech by Kirsty Dougan, Managing Director Asia, Axiom.
Panel discussion about the challenges and opportunities in-house counsel and external counsel face and how they are driving the changes to the legal industry. Innovative ways the legal services are being delivered and more, Moderated by Kirsty Dougan, MD Asia, Axiom; with panelists Corrine Tan, Head of Legal, Southeast Asia, Google; Christian Gordon-Pullar, Executive Director, Head of Legal, Technology, IP and Corporate Functions, Asia Pacific at J.P. Morgan; and Gladys Chun, General Counsel – Lazada Group Tea, Coffee and refreshments will be provided.
An interactive session about design better legal services with a collaborative approach and the types of skills the t-shaped lawyers needs. The session will also address feedback on opportunities and issues when collaborating (from feedback of attendees on white boards in the foyer area). Presented by Alex Smith, Innovation Manager – Reed Smith; Guest panellists – Gerald Licnachan, Counsel – Reed Smith.
Presentation by Co-Director of In-House Community, Patrick Dransfield on the push and pull forces acting between in-house and external counsel looking to innovate.
Light Lunch with networking break.
Speech by Peter Connor (Founder & CEO, Alternatively Legal
This panel discussion will discuss the landscape of legal technology in Singapore and rest of Asia. Where law firms and in-house legal departments stand on the usage of legal tech like AI, Case Management, eDiscovery etc. We will also discuss how legal technology is disrupting the industry, creating opportunities for in-house legal teams to do more with less, and how legal services providers are using technology to add-value to their service provide. Panelist are Gino Bello, FTI Consulting; Paul Neo, Singapore Academy of Law; Peter Connor, AlternativelyLegal; and moderated by Michael Lew of LegalComet.
Any Q&A’s with tea and coffee and networking. There will be a prize draw as well.
The Legal industry is going through a rapid change and disruption. For the longest time, the legal profession seemed immune to change — particularly in Asia. But the long overdue modernisation of the industry is now proceeding apace, creating a host of challenges and opportunities that are shaping the future of legal services. The Asia Legal Inno’ Tech Forum, Singapore 2018 will bring together legal decision makers, including our community of in-house counsel – to learn about these changes, how to embrace them and not to get left behind.
In recognition of the rapidly evolving landscape, In-House Community hosted its inaugural Legal Inno’ Tech Forum in association with Axiom in June 2017 in Hong Kong. Co-hosted by Blackberry and Navigant, the event brought together around 100 legal decision-makers and innovators to discuss these disruptive changes and share ideas on how to avoid being left behind. A highly interactive event, where many decision makers gave their point of view on various topics and shared from their experience, and many issues they face.
The inaugural Legal Inno’Tech meeting in Hong Kong was an excellent dialogue between legal and technical colleagues recognizing the changing world of professional services. Helpful products are surfacing in the market to allow for a real value add to forward thinking legal and compliance professionals.
“In-House Community has always been my preferred conduit to general counsel. In terms of the quality of the management of the events, the quantity, engagement and seniority of the attendees (legal decision-makers especially), and hence value for money, the In-House Community platform cannot be beaten. Just as importantly, the In-House Community team is extremely efficient and an absolute pleasure to work with. I whole-heartedly recommend In- House Community.”
GC’s/In-House CounselLaw Firm PartnersLegal EntrepreneursCompany Directors
Alex Smith is Reed Smith’s first Innovation Manager leading the Innovation Hub programme. He heads up a physical and virtual programme of client-centric ideas-generation and rethinking of legal service design. Based in London, he manages activities in the Innovation Hub, Reed Smith’s unique space for co-creation with clients using service design and innovation techniques. He then looks at using this insight to generate new concepts for changes to delivery of legal services, new legal products, and delivery of more collaborative experiences leveraging Reed Smith’s legal and business services resources. Alex has two decades of experience interacting with lawyers in law firms and in-house teams to design new products and technologies, primarily as Innovation & New Product Lead at LexisNexis. As a user-centric design practitioner for more than 10 years, Alex has the client at the heart of everything he does. The Innovation Hub, since opening in October 2017, has welcomed collaborative design sessions with the in-house legal and innovation teams from many of Reed Smith’s key clients. The Hub looks at how teams work on legal matters, on process mapping, how technology (as well as people) can be pragmatically used, and how legal insight can be applied to emerging technology in the clients’ industries. Christian is the Head of Legal for Technology, Intellectual Property and Cyber in the Asia Pacific region, also responsible for legal coverage of material third party service providers (TPO) and Internal Affiliate (IAS) agreements across all functions and Lines of Business. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Christian held various legal and non-legal roles at Standard Chartered Bank, in London and Asia, from 1999 – 2011. More recently, he worked in private equity and private wealth funds before joining JP Morgan in Dec 2014. Based in Singapore since 2001, he has worked predominantly with and for financial services and investment organizations since 1995 (in London, Paris, Hong Kong and Singapore). Christian’s legal areas of specialism include cyber, FinTech, e-commerce, technology and outsourcing as well as Intellectual Property asset management and brand licensing. Christian has a Bachelor of Sciences in Pharmacology, is qualified as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales and has an MBA from Temple’s Fox School of Business (Philadelphia).
Based in Singapore, her team and her support Google’s offices in Southeast Asia. Corrine’s focus includes advising on legal issues arising from the roll out of Google’s myriad of exciting products in these markets and seeking to influence the regulatory framework to promote an open and vibrant Internet.
Prior to joining Google, Corrine spent a year in the semiconductors industry at Globalfoundries and more than 6 years with Nokia as in-house counsel for Southeast Asia. Corrine was also part of the Information Technology & Communications Practice Group of Baker & McKenzie in Singapore with a short stint in Sydney. She also practised as an Intellectual Property litigator with Allen & Gledhill in Singapore.
Corrine is qualified as a barrister in the UK and is a member of Gray’s Inn. She is a member of the Singapore Bar and the New York Bar.
Gino Bello is a Senior Director of FTI Consulting and leads the Technology segment in Singapore. A computer forensic expert and certified computer examiner, Mr. Bello specialises in forensic collection, analysis and expert reporting of digital evidence. Mr. Bello has over fourteen years of experience in Computer Forensics, Cyber, eDiscovery, and IT. Mr. Bello has led a broad range of matters including large-scale, cross-border disputes, high stakes investigations, arbitrations, and eDiscovery engagements in class actions and Royal Commissions. He assists in Cyber risk and incident response. Mr. Bello has led investigations into IP theft, information leakage, bribery and corruption, regulatory, and other employee-related misconduct. Gladys Chun is the General Counsel of Lazada Group, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group. As the GC, Gladys leads the Legal and Compliance department for Lazada Group and is responsible for all legal and compliance matters across all countries where Lazada has a local presence including Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Russia. She supports the management by providing strategic guidance in commercial strategies and risk management across various business units including Lazada (B2C platform) and LEX (logistics business). Gladys started her career in corporate/commercial and tax practice before moving in-house into retail, franchising and now, technology. Gerald is a corporate lawyer with Reed Smith, based in Singapore whose practice is focused on the frontier and emerging markets of Asia. He advises on a broad range of international securities, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, corporate finance and corporate restructuring transactions. He has extensive experience acting as international counsel for family offices, asset managers, investment groups and conglomerates on their public and private equity investments into the following industry sectors: metals and mining, oil and gas, power generation, infrastructure, commodities, hospitality, real estate, retail and aviation (including private aviation and aircraft). Kirsty Dougan is the Managing Director of Asia for Axiom. For the past seven years, Kirsty has spear-headed the growth of the regional business in Asia, with primary responsibility for leading client development covering major F50 companies along with mid-sized financial, pharmaceutical, FMCG, and tech-companies. Kirsty was previously a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland prior to moving to Asia in 2004 and was Regional Counsel with Diageo based in Shanghai.
Michael is an avid legal technologist with over 17 years of consulting experiences in technology risk management, E-Discovery, digital forensics and recent years, cybersecurity. Upon graduating from the London School of Economics (LSE) with a Masters in Information Systems, Michael started his career with a Barrister’s Chamber at Lincoln’s Inn, a leading law firm – Rajah & Tann and top advisory firms in Asia. Michael was previously a Director at Deloitte and has led their Southeast Asia Forensic Discovery team. He is a qualified digital forensics investigator who provides expert testimonies in both the courts of Singapore and Malaysia.
Following his interest in electronic discovery, he co-authored a book with the title of A Practical Guide to E-Discovery in Asia. Michael is currently the Founder & CEO of LegalComet and the immediate Past President of the High Technology Crime Investigation Association (Singapore Chapter).
Paul oversees organisational capacity building to drive SAL’s mandate as the promotion and development agency for Singapore’s legal sector. He is also the Executive Director of SAL Ventures – SAL’s subsidiary to support the growth of “Future Law” enterprises through initiatives like the Future Law Innovation Programme (FLIP). Before joining SAL, Paul served as CEO of Next U, and as a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group. An engineer by training, Paul began his career as a defence engineer in the Singapore Armed Forces, where he served 8 years in fulfillment of his scholarship bond. Paul graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Master of Engineering and was awarded the MIT Graduate Fellowship Award. He also has a Master of Engineering in Sensors and Smart Structures Engineering from Nanyang Technological University and a Master of Science in Material Science and Engineering from the National University of Singapore. Paul is also an accredited mediator at the Singapore Mediation Centre and the Singapore International Mediation Institute.
Patrick has over 22 years of experience working in the legal industry: firstly as a Publisher and later Asia Managing Director of Euromoney Institutional Investor, and then as Marketing and Business Development Director for Asia for Shearman & Sterling and White & Case respectively. After spending 6 months advising a start-up on-line language learning site for children (Study-cat), Patrick joined InHouse Community as Publishing Director and Co-Director of the In-House Community™ in 2008 and continues in those roles. His publishing career began with Haymarket Publishing in 1987.
Patrick is a graduate of Leeds University and also holds a Master’s Degree in Far East Area Studies from the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS).
Currently based in Sydney, Australia, for most of his career Peter Connor has lived abroad in Hong Kong, Switzerland, England and Silicon Valley, US, gaining experience on all sides of the legal industry: with one of the largest law firms in the world; in-house with prominent IT multinationals in a Chief Compliance role and in various regional General Counsel roles; and in a VP business role with a small tech-enabled compliance firm. He has acquired skills and knowledge in government affairs, compliance, employee learning and development (training), third party channel management, software product development, marketing, sales and support. Connor formed AlternativelyLegal to share his experiences, knowledge, skills – and some specific innovative products – to help in-house legal and compliance professionals throughout the world innovate, change and add value. He does this globally through his Everything But The Law™ training and consulting services and Change4Legal™ workshops for lawyers and his Trouble Traps® compliance videos and Alternative Compliance Solutions for corporate employees.
Rahul Prakash is publisher of Asian-mena Counsel (magazine for the in-house community) and www.inhousecommunity.com. He also assists in the business development of In-House Community events all across Asia, Middle-East and Africa. Over the last 4 years at In-House Community, Rahul has worked with numerous legal services providers, helping them showcase their expertise to in-house counsel.
Prior to working at In-House Community, Rahul was managing a mid-size B2C/B2B export company, developing the business over several countries. He’s a commerce graduate from Delhi University and holds a Diploma in IT/Computer Application, as well as a Certificate in Statistical Thinking for Data Science and Analytics.
Bookings are closed for this event.
You are invited to provide a detailed submission on behalf of your firm for the coveted In-House Community Visionary Firm Awards 2019:
In what has been termed in the market as the only legal industry award for “the legal services provider that truly ‘gets it’ in terms of client service”, the In-House Community Visionary Firm Awards are unique in that they are open to applications from the full spectrum of legal services.
Please click below to load your firm’s submission for the In-House Community Visionary Firm Awards 2019. The deadline for submissions is Friday, 22nd of February 2019. (submissions after this date will not be considered).
Submission Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/visionaryfirm2019nominations
“My ideal legal services provider truly stands in side my shoes and works with me as a long term trusted advisor to help deliver appropriate and cost-effective legal coverage for my stakeholders.“
Good luck!
With thanks to the following for their support of this In-House Community search for excellence:
In-House Community, and Asian-mena Counsel: Firms of the Year 2018.
Kindly note that the Firms of the Year 2018 results are currently under embargo until further notice.
Click on the images below to open the download link.
For firms who have won Firm of the Year, please click the logo below to go to download page.
Firm of the Year 2018 Winner Logo. Click to Download.
For firms who have received Honourable Mention(s), please click the logo below to go to download page.
For firms who have won a Most Responsive Firm of the Year, please click on logo below to go to download page.
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