Area Head of Legal Affairs, ASEAN

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The Area Head of Legal Affairs, ASEAN at Microsoft is a strategic leadership role responsible for overseeing all legal matters within Southeast Asia. This position plays a critical role in shaping and executing Microsoft’s legal strategy, ensuring compliance, managing risk, and enabling business success. The role requires a seasoned legal professional with deep expertise in corporate law and team leadership. Note: there is flexiblity in the role location to be based in Microsoft sites within ASEAN region.

The Area Head of Legal Affairs, ASEAN l will manage a team of legal professionals who are responsible for supporting legal and regulatory matters, and for supporting commercial deals with public sector customers. They will also manage a National Security lead that manages responses to security incidents and government and customer audits and inquiries.

Central to the role will be deep partnerships with internal Microsoft teams. The Area Head of Legal Affairs, ASEAN will be the primary point of contact on legal and regulatory matters for the Area Leadership Team. They will collaborate closely with the CELA Area Ambassador and the Region Deal Team to ensure clear allocation and consistent execution of roles and responsibilities. They will also work as needed with CELA teams including Government Affairs, Compliance & Ethics, Competition, Cloud & Infrastructure, Customer Security & Trust, Trusted Technology and Product & Services Group.

Required Qualifications

• Juris Doctor (JD) or equivalent legal degree AND 6+ years of legal experience with deep understanding/exposure to ASEAN region.
  • OR equivalent experience.
• Active license to practice law in a jurisdiction and capable of meeting admission requirements in relevant jurisdiction.
• Proven track record in corporate and commercial law, regulatory compliance, and/or litigation management.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ideally 10 years of legal experience, including leadership/people management responsibilities.
• Experience working in a multinational corporation and/or technology sector is preferred.
• Strong learning agility, astute business acumen and ability to provide pragmatic legal advice.

#CELA

• Lead and manage the Area legal team and national security team, fostering a high-performance culture aligned with Microsoft’s values.
• Provide strategic legal counsel to senior sales leadership and business units on a wide range of legal and regulatory issues. Help shape strategy and execution of strategic sales priorities.
• Ensure compliance with local laws and regulations, and proactively manage legal risks.
• Oversee litigation and disputes matters (excluding HR and consumer disputes), proactive and reactive regulatory engagements, and Public Sector contract negotiations. Represent CELA in the Area Compliance Committee.
• Work with the Regional Deal Team when needed to support regulatory elements of Enterprise Commercial customer contract negotiations. Work with the Region SME&C CELA lead when needed to support regulatory scaled resources such as self-help materials for the SME&C sales motion.
• Work with the Area Government Affairs Lead and Area Ambassador to ensure alignment between policy engagements and other regulatory engagements, and emerging or multidisciplinary regulatory priorities such as privacy, security, AI and critical infrastructure.
• Responsibly leverage outside counsel resources to drive budget efficiencies.
• Collaborate with regional and global legal teams to land Microsoft’s global objectives within the Area-specific context, and to drive cross-border projects including CELA Customer and Partner Solutions strategic priorities.
• Represent Microsoft in interactions with senior external stakeholders, including regulators, senior legal officers for private and public sector customers, industry bodies, and legal industry leaders.
• Leverage AI to drive innovation.
• Lead Microsoft’s engagement on regulatory and compliance matters relating to national security, critical infrastructure, and relations with Defence and Intelligence customers.
• Manage responses to security incidents and government and customer audits and inquiries.