I left a JPMorgan legal job to join a four-person startup team in Palo Alto.

I spent a year driving two health tech projects forward — translating the founder’s vision to the dev team, speaking directly with early users, and learning what it feels like when the funding runs out and the company doesn’t make it.

That year changed how I think about the work I do.

Before Palo Alto, I’d spent more than a decade working across Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Mumbai in law firm and large corporate roles. Each role was about protecting a client or my employer in a specialised area. I took a break in Fontainebleau to reflect and spend time with family, then moved to Palo Alto.

Thinking like a lawyer was only one of my responsibilities. Jumping into a startup team made me an active participant in business decisions. I had to learn new areas quickly and bring everything back to executing on our build plan. I had no room for impractical legal advice. Every legal issue had to be practical and actionable.

When the startup ran out of road, I moved to Singapore eager to work directly with investors and founders. I pushed myself to understand their challenges as quickly as possible and craft the legal side to fit their goals – not the other way around.

I’m on my third iteration of building a personal AI assistant. Most lawyers see emerging technology as a threat. I see it as an opportunity to spend less time on assembly-line drafting and more time understanding the client’s business and exercising judgement.

Whether you’re writing your first investment cheque, building a micro-fund, or using an SPV to structure your investment, book a call.