Area Head of Legal Affairs, ASEAN
Multiple Locations, Singapore
+ 2 more locations
Date posted
Aug 01, 2025
Job number
1853908
Work site
Microsoft on-site only
Travel
0-25 %
Role type
People Manager
Profession
Legal & Corporate Affairs
Discipline
Legal Counsel
Employment type
Full-Time
Overview
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.
Qualifications
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
Responsibilities
- 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.
Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.
Industry leading healthcare
Educational resources
Discounts on products and services
Savings and investments
Maternity and paternity leave
Generous time away
Giving programs
Opportunities to network and connect
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.