John Cordova ON: Art of Negotiating and Closing M&A deals
After the Bar - Stories from the Legal Industry
Shownotes Transcript
Shulin Lee sits down with John Cordova to talk about how he likens the journey of life to a lottery ticket. As an international M&A lawyer, from landing a coveted spot in a magic circle firm and later moving to Asia, from London, and then to Singapore into his first in-house legal role, he keeps an open mind about where life takes him. In this interview, he shares with us some of his insights, tips and even some of his trade secrets!
John is the Deputy General Counsel of Grab and also one of the earliest Grabbers in the legal team. Grab is known as the Southeast Asian “everyday super app” and has just been listed on NASDAQ. John heads up Grab’s transactions legal team and has been an integral part of Grab’s journey to listing. He started his career in the UK with not one, but two magic circle firms. He worked with them for more than 10 years across a number of jurisdictions - London, Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong. He was also a Partner with one of the Big4 firms here in Singapore - Rajah & Tann, where he successfully grew their ASEAN platform. John Cordova – https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnacordova)
Connect with me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shulinlee/)
More on the podcast - https://www.AfterTheBar.com.sg) What to listen for:
- 0:00 Intro
- 4:30 Life is like a lottery ticket
- 8:26 Practicing all over the world
- 10:40 Moving from law firm to in-house
- 13:40 Moving from in-house back into practice
- 16:00 Joining Grab as one their first lawyers
- 18:25 Fund raising journey
- 23:53 The role of Grab’s legal team
- 25:16 His philosophy as an M&A lawyer
- 27:25 Closing the deal - his trade secret
- 30:50 Favorite country to work in
- 31:36 Advice for junior lawyers
- 33:18 Advice for senior lawyers moving in-house
- 35:10 What would he do differently in his legal career ?
- 36:46 Impact of tech on in-house lawyers
- 39:20 Rapid fire questions
**People mentioned on the show:**Anthony Tan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-tan)Lee Eng Beng: https://sg.rajahtannasia.com/eng.beng.lee)Patrick Ang: https://sg.rajahtannasia.com/patrick.ang)Danny Ong: https://sg.rajahtannasia.com/danny.ong)