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

John Cordova ON: Art of Negotiating and Closing M&A deals 43:20 Share

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John Cordova ON: Art of Negotiating and Closing M&A deals