THE ESSENTIALS: SKILLS, EXPERIENCE, PASSION AND INTEGRITY
CHEE FEI MENG
THE ESSENTIALS: SKILLS, EXPERIENCE, PASSION AND INTEGRITY
I am currently the Regional Head of Group Legal for Wholesale Banking and Group Asset Management & Investments for CIMB Group.
CHEE FEI MENG
• Ms. Fei Meng is currently the Regional Head of Group Legal for Wholesale Banking and Group Asset Management and Investments for CIMB Group
• She has been listed in the GC Powerlist Southeast Asia by Legal 500 issued in 2017 as recognition of the most influential and innovative in-house counsel working in the region
• She was part of the CIMB Group Legal Team which was awarded the Legal Team of the Year for Banking Industry by In- House Community 2017
• She has been named in the list of Top 25 inhouse lawyers in Asia for 2010 by ALB
I started my career in a medium sized law firm in Kuala Lumpur specializing in corporate work. After about four years in practice, I moved to become an in-house counsel for about four years before moving back to legal practice in one of the biggest law firms in Malaysia. I was made a partner of that law firm in 2001 which was about a year after joining them.
My transition from legal field to non-legal field happened in June 2004 when I joined the Equity Capital Markets(“ ECM”) department of CIMB as one of the project heads. It was a move that surprised many people as it is not that common for a partner of law firm to retire from a partnership and to jump into a relatively different field. However, the rare opportunity opened up to me at that time and being passionate about the investment banking business, I yearned to be more involved, to get on the ground and have a closer understanding of how the business work. What is closer to the action than being in the frontline!
Although my job included some legal work in terms of reviewing the underwriting and placement agreements, the main scope included identifying, structuring, valuing, marketing and distributing equity as well convertible products for e. g. IPOs, secondary placements. I had to deal with many stakeholders, from clients to investors, the sales force, the syndicate team, the operations and settlement team, other bankers, external legal counsels and regulators. My responsibilities included accompanying clients for roadshows to meet with institutional investors around the world and that included managing the roadshow meetings, getting investors’ feedback and making sure the management roadshow team’ s needs and logistics are taken care of.
It was a steep learning curve but definitely exciting and enriching. In addition to learning on the job, I had to take courses in finance to upscale my skills for the role. It also helped that I had colleagues who were willing to guide me and a team with mix of background where we could leverage on each other’ s expertise.