 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Welcome to Think Tech Global on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host today, Caroline Lee. Our show is called Corporate Law Practice in Hong Kong's Hospitality Industry, specifically about practicing international labor and employment law, and how UH Law School prepares its graduates as international lawyers. If you want to ask a question or make a comment, you can tweet us at thinktechhi or call us at 374-2014. International lawyer, Jing Wu, returns to Hawaii after spending a decade working in Asia as an international labor and employment specialist, both in private practice and as in-house counsel. He talks about his current position in the hospitality industry as vice president and senior counsel for Marriott International in Hong Kong. A graduate of UH Richardson School of Law, Jing Wu has also practiced in Beijing and Shanghai. Welcome, Jing Wu. Thank you, Carol. Good to see you again after 10 years. Yes. So, Tels, you're here in Hawaii for the first time and on your way back from a corporate... Legal summit in Washington, DC. Yeah, on behalf of Marriott, right? Yes. So, what do you do for Marriott as the vice president and in-house counsel? So, for me, I'm the in-house labor and employment lawyer for Marriott International. It's practiced in Asia Pacific. I look after the company's labor and employment operations in Asia in all 30 countries, 30 brands. In 30 countries? Yes. All in Asia? Yes. I see. So, for us, we are a hotel management company. We call ourselves operators. Then we help to actively manage all these hotels in Asia. We have about 30 brands after we merged with Starwood. Wow. So, are you the largest hospitality company in the world? We are one of the largest international brands in the world. We have a large footprint in Asia. Sure. How many... How do you measure that? Do you measure it by the number of hotels? I know you mentioned 30 brands. Yeah, we measure it by number of hotels, a number of the rooms. Number of employees. We call these number of employees a number of actively managed hotels. We do both franchises at actively managed hotels. Okay. So, about how many are we talking about? We are talking about like 600 to 700 actively managed hotels. And every year we have new hotels. It's to be opened in the pre-opening pipeline. Oh, no kidding. And so, we're talking about Asia, Southeast Asia? Yeah, we're talking about the far from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the South Asia, Maldives, to French Polynesia. And do you have a large concentration in any particular area, China? Yes, China is always important by the volume. We have 40% of the hotels in China. For India, it's also very important. Now, we have over 100 opening hotels in Asia, in India. In India, my goodness. And they're under different brands. Marriott, we know Starwood, right? Yes, Sheraton, Sandwiches, Weston. Weston, right? And they're all under you? Yes, in the meridian, yes. Look at the hospitality industry. Most of the companies start with one brand, then over the year you acquire different brands and for whatever consumer strategy or the brand attraction or whatever market inside you get. So a lot of like Hilton also have multiple brands, Intercom have multiple brands. Right, so those are your biggest competitors? So they are like, we, it's a very small circle. So we are friends, so we are running as these international players in Asia. There are a lot of local players in Asia, like Shangri-La. Of course, Shangri-La, right? So now, as corporate counsel in labor and employment law, how big is your office and what kind of problems, challenges do you face with your, with Marriott International? For my work as a corporate legal advisor for labor and employment law, I am the sole counsel. Sole counsel? Sole counsel, yes. Meaning you don't have anybody else who has your particular experience or expertise? Yes, it's a very unique line of practice. Why is that? Because they are looking to you for thought leadership, for technical advice, also for some of these commercial judgment call guidance. So you are not just purely a technical lawyer who would go to the court to win the case because for Inhao, that's very different. We are also talking about certain countries. You cannot, like a lot of countries, they operate in their local languages. They are not looking for that type of legal involvement, but what they see your counsel is the comfort when they're making the decision. They want to show the comfort in making a decision. When the decision was made, then every scenario had been considered. Yes, they are prepared and they know the consequences of what they walk into. I see, so can you give us an example of maybe some of the types of corporate issues that you've been working on, your face? Yeah, sure. For all these actively managed hotels, you have these hotel owners. They own the land, they own the building, they provide the funding capital to run the hotel. Then you also have hotel operators, so we are. Who are separate from the hotel owners. Yes, but we say in most of the time, the operator and the owner, they have the combined win-win situation, common interest to run it. But there are occasions, for example, you have a government down-rate wanted to know certain down-rate, wanted to know record-trade issues. For example, immigration law complies in particular situations. Sometimes this is a good face action by the government. Sometimes it's just like you don't know what really happened there, you need to figure it out. But when these things happen, you need to hand-holding with the owners, with the operators to make sure that we all work together. Mary International is going to work together with the hotel operators. Yes, to minimize the reputation of the impact to us, to minimize any legal risk to the owners. I see, so do you work in 30 different, how many languages, or do you speak, or do you have to get involved with translators? We do have in-house translators. We have local councils in every country we operate. Yes, but for us, foreign language skill is also very important to us. OK, and I know you speak. Yeah, I speak Chinese, yes. Yeah, and I also had to do legal documents in the Chinese language. And English, yes. Yeah, OK. So we all know that Starwood was just acquired by Merritt. That was just completed fairly recently, right? Yeah, we are one company now. That happened two years ago, yeah. And so what is the future of Merritt? Do you see it getting more complicated and more acquisitions so that your work will change in any way? Well, I think for this industry, there will be continued innovation in the field. We are not talking about the old school hotel operation anymore. For these days, the loyalty program is very important. Loyalty program, ah. And the digital areas, yes. Now when you walk into some of the Merritt hotels, you can experience mobile checking using your iPhone become your room key. Oh, really? You have all these technology experiences. So for us, we do have these partnerships with different technology partners. I see, and do you get involved in those contracts or you leave? Yes, there will be different projects. We have to look into it because whenever you do a project like this, there will be a significant change internally from people's incentive, how task job is being staffed to the longer term, like do we make a permanent change to the corporate structure? So how do you keep up with the changes in the law? Are we talking about international law? We're talking about labor law? Yeah, we're talking about the international labor employment practice in Asia. Actually, this is one of the most active field. In Hong Kong, we do have an in-house lawyer around table. Yes, we meet from different multinational companies. I'll do labor law. They're doing a variety of things. Some of them are doing these financial industries. Some of them are in these commercial companies. But we meet every quarter. We talk about the labor development in the field. And a lot of time with me, 50% of the time we're talking about people issue, HR legal issues. Yes, right. Do you do it in English or Chinese? We do all these languages. Yes, we have lawyers. Is English the English? English, yes, we have English. But it's very interesting. You can see Australians working in Hong Kong for their whole life. And you can also see very smart Indian lawyers working in Singapore. And their company have a large base in India, but also have forefront in Singapore and Hong Kong. Do you have to travel a lot for what you're doing? Yes, we have to. Where do you go? We have to visit our properties. We have to know what is going on in the field. We have to hear all the feedback from the field to make the sound judgment. And how long have you been with Marriott International in Hong Kong? For almost two years. Two years. And before that, I know you haven't been in Hong Kong in the last 10 years. Yeah, before that I was working in Shanghai for Accenture Technology Consulting Company. Is that an international company? Yes, it's headquarters in Chicago. And what did you do for that? Well, then I was also doing the labor employment advisor for its greater China practice in Greater China. And how long were you there? I was there for five years, yes. And did you like it in Shanghai and in that company? Yeah, Shanghai has become very international over the past five years I experienced. When I came back to Shanghai, it's still one of the very beautiful Chinese city. But you feel the pace is different. You feel the culture, the way of life, the working business ethics is different. But now it's very international. So both Accenture and Marriott International, you are doing labor international. Is it the same type of practice, an international law practice that you could easily transfer? It's similar in a way, yes. But for Accenture, it has much more issues on the operation side. Because for Accenture, they do run this technology delivery center. We are talking about 10,000 people, 20,000 people in the technology delivery center, 24 hours. And where is that? Are they all located in? They are located in India, China, Philippines, and Eastern Europe. Although you said it was headquartered in Chicago. So were you the lawyer for Asia again? Yes, I was a lawyer for Asia. Yes, for China, Greater China. But then that's really a global. Because for this type of business, you have a global contract, but it is going to be delivered somewhere in Asia. Then you have these clients basically in the other side of the globe. And how big is the little council's office in Accenture? Accenture is also we are talking about all the lawyer getting together. It's like a mid-sized international firm. And how big is that? It's what we're talking about, 500 lawyers globally. About 500 lawyers globally. Yeah, that's a few years ago. Wow. And so you, though, were the labor lawyer for Accenture, for Shanghai, for the Asia? For the Greater China. And for labor improvement practice Accenture, we have a global practice team. The global team has around 20 lawyers globally. Almost every country we operate. We operate around like 57 countries around the globe. So between the two, tell us a little bit the pace, because we know in the US, private practice demands a lot of hours. Billable hours, weekends, evenings. A lot of not just billable hours, but outside work, whether it's building a client base, rain making, as we call it. What kind of lifestyle do you have as an in-house lawyer at Accenture and at Marriott? I think in-house lawyer in Asia, the pace is quite similar to private practice. That's in my view. Yes, because you cover a lot of larger number of countries. Then you have a large number of issues going on. You're traveling. Traveling. And you also have to do these corporate connectivities, like rain makers. So you need to find more. You need to let people know who you are. You need to really understand the business. The way of doing that is to immerse yourself to the corporate structure. So it's not just narrowly doing your legal work. Yes, it's not just narrowly doing a piece of contract because in Asia, you have tons of international law friends have their practice in Asia. All this, they can spend some money to get the piece of the contract. But what they cannot get is somebody who knows the business, who have a vision, who make a commercial judgment. A much bigger picture of the landscape. Yes, and they prefer in Asia because of the way of Asia. They prefer you getting connected personally. They don't want to see you as a robot behind the computer. But you don't have billable hours. We don't have billable hours. You do? We don't, but we have metrics. Oh, you have metrics? Yeah, because these days, you know how the big data or the technology advanced. Everything can be measured. Everything can be measured. We have scorecard. You have metrics. Scorecard. Oh, my goodness. And so can you tell us what are the metrics that you need to reach, for instance? Well, you have the customer satisfaction survey. And you have this. And in this case, your customers, let's say, from Marriott, would be who? There will be the senior corporate persons. You work on day-to-day basis. So they're actually in-house people who are your clients. Who are your clients? Yeah, it's different. For a private practice, sometimes it's very rare you do a customer survey. Right, OK. Well, this has been fascinating. We've been talking to my guest, Jing Wu, who is an international labor and employment specialist, visiting, coming back to Hawaii. And we're going to take a short break. We'll be right back. Hey, baby. That's you. I want to know, will you watch my show? I hope you do. It's on Tuesdays at 1 o'clock. And it's out of the comfort zone. And I'll be your host, RB Kelly. See you there. Hello, I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair. I have a show called Finding Respect in the Chaos. It's all about women's rights and gender equality. It's a place for survivors of abuse to come on and tell their stories. And a place for advocates to come on and share important resources so that people can get past the abuse and into the hope and healing that's on the other side. I hope you'll join me every other Friday at 3 o'clock for Finding Respect in the Chaos. I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair on thinktecawaii.com. Welcome back. This is Carol Monly on a special edition of Think Tech Global with my guest Jing Wu, who is a law graduate of UH Richardson School of Law and who has been practicing for 10 years in Asia in the labor and employment field. We've been talking about his practice, his corporate law practice, both at Marriott International in Hong Kong and at Accenture. Well, the Asia headquarters is Shanghai, right? So we talked about those two. But I know when you left Hawaii, where did you go? I went back to Beijing. I joined the Chinese law firm that time. Are you from Beijing? I'm from Shanghai. But that's an interesting story, because when I was in law school, I took some of the classes from Professor Ron Brown, Professor Larry Foster, and Professor Alison Connor. These are fascinating classes to let you know about what's going on in Asia. And there is something called international practice. You get into that field, and you know what these top issues people are dealing with. And at that time, I think China is going through fascinating changes in the last 10 years, the last 15 years. A lot of new law was returned. They don't really know what to do when you had a new law. And the legal field, people are not prepared. Of course, you're talking about these New York firms. They are specialized in the capital market. They go into China. It's a big market to do it. But there are a lot of regulatory requirements other than the labor employment practice. They wanted to borrow the best from civil law countries, from common law jurisdictions. And they need people to advise them how to do it. And of course, people who are both bilingual, fluent completely in English and in law, and also, of course, speaking, reading, writing, Chinese. Yes, so when I went back, I joined one of the largest Chinese law firm in China, different. The law firm like to do a lot. Everything is a Maca size. OK, what's the name of that law firm? King and Wood, that time called King and Wood. King and Wood, you're right. The name was just a fictional name. Because there was a partner by the name Mr. King. And there was also a partner by the name Mr. Wood. They saw these guys that owned the company. No, they don't. They were just employees working there. But they like the name. They like the name because that's easy to do business with. So for Americans, it's easy to spell, easy to send email. You won't get confused. Right. So I was there in their labor employment practice group. For how long were you there? For about two years, more than two years. I was there helping them to dealing with international clients, and particularly a lot of litigation management. So we do have foreign companies in China getting themselves into trouble, getting litigated through these employee claims. And you are not familiar with the court system. You don't know the group procedures, but somehow there will be very serious consequences. You need somebody to walk you through to help you understand what's going on to get prepared. And a lot of times, they have their in-house counsel. They have a law firm based in the US. And because they don't speak the same legal language, sometimes it's painful. Yeah. So how big was that firm? The firm was about southern lawyers. Now it's, I think, 2,000, 3,000 lawyers. All in Beijing? All across China, all the major cities. Yes. King and Wood. King and Wood, yes. And you were there for two years? Yes. And you were in a department then at that point, right? Not just you weren't the sole laborer? I wasn't the sole. The department was really talking about 20 lawyers at that time. I see. But most of the lawyers are dealing with pure local players. There are only a few lawyers who can deal with the international players. And so did you deal with the local lords? And mostly, or did you study it? The local lords, yeah. Because internationally, you have the international clients. But the legal issue is completely local issues. Sometimes there are crossover because we're talking about international assignments. Can you give us an example of some of the local issues that might have come across you, Jess? Yes, of course. So I'll give you an example. Some of the company, 2008, Financial Crisis, they are not doing, yes, 2008, 2010, they are not doing so good. They want to close their business, close their office. It's the same in the U.S. You can liquidate a company, have the board resolutions, and you close the bank account, and you pay people you leave. No, you don't. Not in China. Not in China. So there are specifically three different work streams with the government. And before that, people have to put you to the court system. They sue you in order to take the priority of the payment. Oh, my goodness. Yes. OK. So we're talking about two years, three years, in this process. Process. Close the business. Sometimes these companies are getting scared. Why are we getting sued? We haven't done anything wrong. We just have no business. It's Financial Crisis. Right. We don't have anything to keep going. So has that changed regulations or laws? It has been changed in the past 10 years. I think it's getting much more clarity. Yes, there are no much less gray areas. Much less gray areas. So how would you compare then the private practice in Beijing versus your corporate practice, both in Hong Kong and Shanghai? I think the private practice is quite different. It's more focused on these technical skills. You have to be good in court. You have to win the case. You have to be very aggressive, competitive. But for corporate practice, you are practicing a different level of advocacy in the company. You have to make great commercial judgment. And of course, you were just starting out in Beijing in private practice. So you weren't necessarily required to do any rainmaking. Yes, I wasn't there. But a lot of times, these clients, they see a lawyer can speak their language. They were really happy to know you. And sometimes they really get connected to you personally. Yeah, they take to you. They introduce new business to you. So why did you decide to move from Beijing private practice to Shanghai? No, at that time, I was headhunted by the Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong. At that time, they need somebody to help them with their internal employee relations. They need somebody to come from a legal background who is energetic, who is looking for a change, who can sit on these banking trading floors and can do the employee relations. So then you went from Beijing private practice to Hong Kong at Goldman Sachs. Then you went back to Shanghai. OK, so tell us about Goldman Sachs. And so that's a very different type of industry then. Yes, this is a very type of industry. I think it's one of the best investment banks so far, and everything will run with a high touch. And what did you specialize there? I always let there employment relations advisors. So a lot of time, you're sitting in the room together with the compliance guy, together with the legal person. You're not the legal person. We are not the legal person, per se. But we are the person with legal education as the employee relations advisor. See, we make sure these procedures, internal procedures, are fair to the employees. Are you representing the employee? Yeah, we consider ourselves as a good conscience of the bank. Are the unions there? No, no, it's not unionized. It's all professionals. Yeah, it's not unionized. But you know that sometimes you have all sort of issues, sometimes personal issues, sometimes compliance issues. Sometimes it's just bizarre. Government investigations, yeah. You want to make sure that these legal guys or compliance guys are not overreaching, being overly aggressive. You also want to make sure these employees do feel comfortable to cooperate with the investigations. And how big was the legal department you were in? So the government sector was really small compared to JPMorgan or Merrill Lynch because of the size. It's smaller. We had about 2,000 bankers in Hong Kong. And the legal department? We have three employee advisors at that time. Yes, so I'm one of the employee advisors in Hong Kong. There is another employee relations advisor in Tokyo. Well, so you've really had, in 10 years, you've had private practice in Beijing and then three different corporate experiences in Asia. Yes. Covering thousands and thousands of people and different types of businesses. Yes, that's one of the things that Asia, Asia, everything evolves so fast. So you can see people do make a lot of changes over the time. Because it's been growing. It's the growth part of the world. How did you, was it hard for you to get a job out of law school going straight to Beijing? So I think that's, I'm really fortunate. During the law school time, I had some research with Professor Ron Brown. So I think he introduced me to the law firm in China. Nice to meet you. Well, let's talk a little bit about why you were here in Hawaii. So you graduated from UH Law School in? In 2006. 2006. And before that, were you doing a simultaneous master's in East-West Center? Yes, so I was doing a simultaneous master's. Yes, I got the East-West Center scholarship. I got here at Honolulu in 2001. Yes, I started taking some of the classes in UH. For our master's? Yes, in political science. I also took some of the classes from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Yeah, I also took some classes in law school, business school. And so then you applied to the law school? Yes. I decided to do something more like practical at that time. Yeah, because at that time I was young. I don't know what I'm going to do after school. So you opened up any possibility? Yes. OK, so tell us about how you UH Law School, because our law school is very unique being in Hawaii and in the middle of the Pacific. And we are very proud of our international scope and depth of courses. So tell us, how did UH Law School prepare you then for this role as an international lawyer in Asia? I think the UH Law School really prepared me well for this being here in Hawaii. We do have a vantage point to connect East and West. And the law school classes, there are a lot of Asian-focused classes. I remember that time we just started LLM program with all these international lawyers. I think Spencer Kimura just came back from the mainland to run the program. So we also have a lot of interaction students among the students with these lawyers from Japan, from Korea. So you do have the vantage to know what's outside the US. So maybe we can explain the LLM program at UH Law graduates from other countries who already have a law degree but want to come to the United States and get an advanced degree. So they get an LLM, a master's in law from the University of Hawaii Law School. And so they were integrated in your career. They were integrated. They were sitting in the same class with us. So we don't feel any different because of different programs. Yeah, we were in the same study groups, same clinic classes. But yet they've already been lawyers and practices. They've been lawyers. They've been practicing lawyers. But even for UH, I see most of the students are quite mature. We're not talking about people just out of college. There are a lot of working professionals coming back to law school getting a second degree. So that enriched your experience in terms of understanding other parts of the world in terms of practice. Yes. And so what kind of courses did you take? You mentioned labor law with Ron Brown. Yes. Other courses here that? There's a lot of Asian-focused classes. I remember there are specific seminars regarding China, Japan. Business? Business. And also Professor David Callis, the real estate class, he said it was fascinating. It's really tough now. Yeah. People study hard for the exam. I still remember that. OK. And I know you did some immigration work, too, while you were here. Yes, I was also an immigration class. UH Law School, I think one of the interesting things. We have a lot of adjunct professors from outside of school. They're practitioners. Yes, practitioners. So you're not just studying the book. You know, we also went to this prosecution clinic, legal aid clinic. Right. So you had great hands-on experience, too. We just have a few seconds. If you want to just look into camera forehand, tell everyone how they can get into an international law practice if that's what they're interested in. Yes. I think you need to stay open-minded, be curious intellectually, and be open to changes. If you are interested in hospitality, you can let me know. And we can do a internship in the summer. Wonderful. Well, thank you, Jing-Wu. That was a wonderful offer to our viewers if anyone's interested in international law. Well, our time went by so quickly. That brings us to the end of our show today. We have really enjoyed bringing it to you. I'm your host, Carol Mon-Lee. We've been talking about corporate law practice in Hong Kong's hospitality industry and beyond, as well as practice in Beijing and Shanghai. If you want to see the show again, please go to thinktechkawaii.com. Or youtube.com. Thinktechkawaii, where there will be a link to this show and many more just like this one. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time. Aloha.