Welcome to the third edition of Alumni News. The view above is from our Beijing office on the 34th floor of the China World Trade Centre in the heart of Beijing’s central business district. It’s an impressive view and if you’ve not yet visited our office there we look forward to seeing you.

In this third edition, we include part two of my video interview with John Connor, the founder of our Hong Kong office. In addition to setting up our Hong Kong office, John also played a key role in the opening of our offices in Sydney, Singapore, Jakarta and Thailand. If you missed part one you can see it in the December Alumni News.

John, who is now based in Sydney, remains passionate about the Firm. In this edition he shares more interesting stories about our early days in Hong Kong in 1974 when we were one of only two international firms, including his amusing experiences of a stay at the Furama Hotel (for those of you who do not remember the Furama, the site is now occupied by the AIG Tower) and his first trip to Mainland China in 1978 with his daughters, as well as how we set up our China practice.

We also hear from Shen Danfeng, a former lawyer in our Beijing office who is now Legal Counsel at Porsche China. Danfeng joined the Firm in 2013 as part of the China Baker McKenzie Scholarship Program, open to full-time law students from selected universities in Beijing and Shanghai. The Program’s name changed in 2016 to the Baker McKenzie and FenXun Joint Scholarship Program following the establishment of the Joint Operation in 2015. Danfeng shares her experience of this Scholarship Program, and how it shaped her career.

On the topic of the Joint Operation, Kevin Yuan, a Financial Services Partner at FenXun who joined the Firm in July 2020, gives his view of the Joint Operation and how our platform benefits our clients.

And finally, following this history theme, we have included interviews with Zhang Ning, our Beijing Director of Operations and Clifford Borg-Marks, former Principal in our Beijing office (and currently working in our Hong Kong office). Both have been with the Firm for more than 30 years and talk about when they joined, the challenges that the Firm has overcome, and what they have found to be consistent at Baker McKenzie during these times.

We hope you enjoy this third edition, and as vaccinations climb and travel begins to pick up we look forward to connecting with you in person in the near future.

Best regards,
Steven Sieker
Hong Kong and China Managing Partner
Baker McKenzie

See part two of the video interview I had with John Connor, the founder of our Hong Kong office and a hugely important figure in the history of our Firm in this region. We hear about John’s first impressions of Hong Kong, memorable characters in our office and an interesting representation of a Hong Kong conglomerate which is still a client of the Firm today. See more here. 

In April 2015, Baker McKenzie announced it was the first international law firm to enter into a joint operation in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone with the PRC law firm FenXun Partners. We spoke to Kevin Yuan, a FenXun Partner in the Financial Services Practice in Shanghai to hear more about how the Joint Operation is working and how our clients are benefiting from it. Read more here.

Shen Danfeng is Legal Counsel of Porsche China. Prior to joining Porsche China in 2018, Danfeng was an International Associate in our Beijing office. She joined the Firm as an intern in 2013 as part of the China Baker McKenzie Scholarship Program and was one of eight winners in Beijing from 2012 and 2013. Danfeng talks about her experience of the Program and time with the Firm. Read more here.

We share with you our August to December 2021 list of client training options so we can continue to equip you with knowledge and soft skills. We also feature how we celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Baker McKenzie FenXun Joint Operation as well as some of the ways we honoured International Women’s Day and Pride Month. Finally, we include highlights of some of the fundraising initiatives that took place in our Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai offices. Read more here.

Interviews with Zhang Ning and Clifford Borg-Marks: then-and-now and the challenges that we’ve overcome. See more here.

Read more about the recent recognition we have received here.