Yvonne Ho is a 1989 JD graduate from UBC law school, and a recipient of the 2020-21 Alumni Builder Award for her instrumental work, along with Katherine U, in bringing about the Hong Kong Alumni Student Lounge in Allard Hall and establishing the Law 75th Anniversary Hong Kong Alumni Bursary. She is the Managing Director and Head of Legal and Compliance of Cheetah Investment Management, a specialist hedge and alternative funds investor that has seeded, invested, and partnered with assets totaling over US $2.3 billion over the past 20 years. She serves on the board of various group investment management companies. She is also the founder of Courses & Seminars Limited, a leading provider of continuous professional training for professionals in the legal, accounting, compliance, risk management, and financial services industries since 2001.
CALS: For our students and readers in North America, having the opportunity to learn about the experiences of international practitioners is extremely valuable, especially amidst the travel restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Can you give us some insight on how COVID-19 has impacted daily life in Hong Kong?
Yvonne: The pandemic has certainly transformed how we go about our day-to-day lives—I, for one, have experienced my own share of travel withdrawals—and we are now operating under a “new normal.” Most of my staff are now WFH (working from home) or on a rotation basis, and more and more jobs are turning “remote” and no longer confined to Hong Kong. The world has undergone a “digital revolution,” and I, like many others, have used this opportunity to reflect and ground myself in these changes. In Hong Kong, people have become more health-conscious and are finding creative ways to adjust to these unique circumstances: for instance, the hotel industry is being supported through “staycations,” where residents can stay at a resort hotel for a weekend in lieu of international travel.
We are fortunate that Hong Kong has one of the best medical care systems in the world and imposes stringent, 21-day mandatory quarantines for anyone who has potentially been exposed to the virus. Our vaccine rollout has also started in early March 2021, and we have reached a point where the main concern is not with containment, but with vaccine distribution. You have a minimal chance of catching the virus in Hong Kong so long as you take the proper precautions of wearing a mask and keeping to your bubble of friends.
Unfortunately, North America and Europe are still struggling to control the spread of COVID-19, and this perhaps reflects attitudinal differences towards the virus. This pandemic has been an interesting exercise in compassion and care for others; as our individual actions can have huge consequences for the elderly and those with health conditions, it is more necessary than ever to take responsibility for our own behaviour.
CALS: Could you tell us about the trajectory of your career? What brought you from Canada to Hong Kong?
Yvonne: I was born and raised in Hong Kong but studied in the US for both high school and undergrad. My family moved to Vancouver in 1984, and I followed soon after to complete my JD at Allard Law. I articled at Lawson Lundell LLP in Vancouver and continued to work there as a real estate and banking lawyer until I had the opportunity to return to Hong Kong. In fact, I was constantly travelling between Hong Kong and Vancouver from 1992-1993 as Lawson Lundell opened a Hong Kong office at that time. Although I was up for partnership at the firm, I decided to leave during this period and relocate to Hong Kong permanently because I felt that my career path would be largely settled for the next 20 years if I stayed at the same firm. I did a headhunter interview and was soon hired by Clifford Chance LLP.
I was lucky to have returned to Hong Kong at this point because the city was undergoing significant financial infrastructural development—which meant more work for lawyers—and though my time at Lawson Lundell prepared me well, the scale of legal work in Hong Kong really enriched my experience beyond Vancouver. However, I was only at Clifford Chance for 18 months; even though I would have been offered a partnership, I realized that I wanted to start a family and spend more time outside of the office. As a result, I moved to an in-house counsel position at Credit Suisse.
While raising my son, I worked a part-time job at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, where I was a regulator overseeing disciplinary actions in the Enforcement Division. This “part-time” job turned out to be a full-time, work-from-home job—in fact, when I later left the Division to establish my company, Courses & Seminars Limited, I found out that I had been doing the workload for two full-time staff but on a part-time contract! My career path has thus been busy and filled with surprises.
CALS: Tell us more about your work at Cheetah Investment Management. What do you enjoy most about your work? And what is the most challenging part of this work?
Yvonne: Cheetah Investment Management is an asset and investment management firm that focuses on alternative investments, primarily hedge funds. Cheetah specializes in seeding Asian-based fund managers and is one of the earliest SFC licensed firms advising on hedge funds. Being a transactional lawyer, I was mainly in charge of launching funds for the Group as well as responsible for setting up fund management companies and assisting them in obtaining regulatory licenses, fund restructurings, group corporate restructurings, acquisitions, etc. I then became the COO also overseeing the middle- and back- office functions.
The most challenging part of this work is to be able to keep up with constant regulatory changes due to the financial crisis in 2009 (i.e. to comply with increasingly complicated and rigorous regulatory standards) and yet only have the resources of a boutique outfit.
I have also been a Responsible Officer (RO) since the implementation of the Manager-in-Charge regime in Hong Kong in 2018. Now, my focus is on fundraising for our funds and business development for the Company.
CALS: What is your advice for law students interested in moving to Asia for their career?
Yvonne: There are still sizeable numbers of young people coming to Hong Kong from all over the world—despite the current exodus of people from Hong Kong to other financial centers like Singapore—so law students should not hesitate to seek out work in Hong Kong if they are interested in overseas practice. In fact, the UBC law alumni community in Hong Kong is small but quite reputable.
There are plenty of opportunities for young lawyers to pursue a career in finance or the asset management field in Hong Kong, so this may incentivize those with a background in business. As Hong Kong still remains a financial center and asset management hub, the type of law you will be practicing will be multi-faceted. Having a common-law background will tremendously help your legal and in-house practice, where most of the regulations are “international” and common-law based. For example, the laws on anti-money laundering regulatory regimes are all converging and have significant overlaps, as are the disclosure of interests regime as well as marketing and distribution laws and listing rules.
I have a number of suggestions for law students interested in moving to and practicing in Asia. One is to build a solid foundation in some legal practice in your home jurisdiction. Although practicing in the regulatory and financial services is mainly based in the common law, many Asian jurisdictions are civil law-based (e.g. Korea, Japan, and the PRC). Some exposure or knowledge on the civil law regime and comparative law between the different legal regimes would also be beneficial. Another important advantage you can have is a written or spoken language capability in some Asian languages, particularly Chinese.
At the end of the day, your main asset is how you treat your relationship to the law: law school teaches you how to read the law, but as the law is constantly being updated, you need to be open to learning on your own initiative in order to make your legal experience that much more rewarding.
CALS: Finally, can you tell us more about legal and professional education in Hong Kong—in particular, how has your company, Courses & Seminars Limited (C & S), adapted to the circumstances of COVID-19?
Yvonne: Courses and Seminars Limited started out as a sort of a “retirement” hobby that allowed me to help other lawyers meet their mandatory Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements. The Law CPD scheme was implemented while I was a regulator at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. I needed to maintain my practicing certificate to instruct counsel. Because this process seemed easy to organize, I decided to try my hand at it. Amidst the increasing digitization of transactional contact resulting from the pandemic, we now have cost-effective and efficient ways of hosting experienced specialists for our events online via zoom webinars. It also enables C&S to recruit talent not confined in HK alone. C & S also offers accreditation for courses across different jurisdictions and has expanded to other professions including the financial services, risk management, and compliance sectors.
I remember when, during my time at Clifford Chance, we had to obtain external lawyers to learn about Japanese company law before we could deal with a property transfer, because Japanese company law is vastly different from that of a common law-based company. CPD courses offered by Courses and Seminars Limited can make this kind of knowledge much more accessible to ALL professionals.
What has kept me running C & S for 20 years is my love for continuous learning. Again, laws and regulations and practices are constantly evolving, and you need to stay ahead in order to be a valuable practitioner with a broad perspective of law’s international ripples.
