Work for a legal counsel involves a lot of time and scrupulous attention to detail, according to Andrew Kwong, director of legal services, express and logistics for Greater China at DHL
DHL, a subsidiary of Deutsche Post, runs three business divisions in Asia-Pacific - express, freight forwarding and supply chain. My role is to provide proactive legal and strategic advice, and support to the leadership teams of the three divisions in Greater China on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and business development opportunities.
For large M&As and special projects, I am the 'go to person' for engaging and managing legal and financial advisers in identifying and negotiating with M&A targets.
We have dedicated staff engaged in government affairs, so I am often involved in building strategic partnerships with regulators of our industry and the state-owned Asset Supervision and Administration Commission, which regulates the top state-owned companies in China, including our joint-venture partner there.
I also perform the role of what we call the regional lead counsel for global customers, and manage the overall legal risk position by ensuring our global and regional framework agreements reflect best practice.
As the director of legal services for Greater China, with a team of 17 lawyers, a key mandate is to provide commercially oriented and service focused leadership and development to the team.
Last but not least I need to ensure the internal and external resources of the legal team are aligned and organised to most effectively meet the needs of the company. Advising my business partners on initiatives under the backdrop of a rapidly changing regulatory environment in China can be quite a challenge. Often these new regulations have yet to be officially tested, leaving much room for government discretion.
