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Name: Winnie Tse
Title: Senior Legal Counsel, Board Secretary of Association of the Corporate Counsel Hong Kong Chapter
Company: Sinopec Century Bright Capital Investment Limited
Location: Hong Kong
6:55 am:
Time to fight for a table tennis table online with the Hong Kong Government’s leisure services SmartPlay app. It’s a battle to the end to rent a table for two hours in a prime location after work so that the Law Society table tennis team can have their weekly practice. We have a dedicated booking team to help book enough tables for members. Take a nap after 7:10 am when all tables are booked.
7:35 am:
My son has already gone to school and our helper has our fruits and fiber of the day ready in the form of chia seed fruit salad mixed with nuts and spirulina powder mixed in milk for our breakfast. Quick check of our bus app and head out the door a few minutes before the bus arrives.
9:00 am - 11:00 am:
Arrive in the office and enter by facial recognition screening which logs in our arrival time. Time to prepare my coffee/ tea of the day and check the news online, check my calendar and go through work emails, flagging those which need further attention.
11:00 am - 12:00 noon:
Start with reviewing various bank and services contracts and checking against our template of contracts, marking them up and summarizing the main points to my colleagues in our various offices in Hong Kong, Middle East, US, UK and Singapore so they can negotiate with the banks and vendors directly. Work is prioritized first by urgency (I’ll be notified of this by my colleagues) then by a queuing system on our enterprise contracts approval system or by whose email comes first.
If there’s breaking news on sanctions, then it’s forwarded to my Risk Management and Legal Department colleagues for their attention and checking on our transactions as we are the treasury centre for the group. My legal counsel colleague and I prepare and send out weekly sanctions news updates to keep everyone in the loop about sanctions in the countries where we operate our treasury centre and financial services.
12:00 noon - 2:00 pm:
Have lunch ordered from the staff canteen delivered to the office. Chose the healthy lunchbox option today – seared chicken with soba noodles and mixed veggies. Then go for a run along the seaside promenade next to my office and have a quick shower in the office before settling down to work.
2:00 pm - 4:30 pm:
Aim to finish up work for the previous week queued in our system. Writing up updates to our legal policies takes up more time and sends rough drafts in batches to our department head for review first before delving into them. Son is home after school. Message him on our family group chat and check his school apps about his assessments and home learning assignments ahead. Make sure he does at least his Chinese writing practice or maths extra activities before having screentime. Negotiates home learning time with him while juggling work.
4:30 pm - 5:30 pm:
Plan for the week ahead and manage tasks to do for next week. Send out our weekly sanctions news update to our Sinopec Century offices globally. Set up online calls with banks to conduct contract negotiation. Register for ACC Hong Kong Chapter’s events upcoming. Read up on legal news.
5:30 pm - 6:00 pm:
End of the work day. Check messages from the Board and administrator of ACC Hong Kong Chapter. As Board Secretary and Co-Chair of the Seminars Committee, mark down my to-do list and deadlines on reviewing and preparing Board documents and following up on upcoming events and sponsors. Schedule them in both my personal and work calendar with regular reminders so I don’t forget.
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm:
Head to my nearby music school for my weekly violin class. I like pairing up the classical instrument with pop song sheet music. Currently on Despacito violin version by Karolina Protsenko (violinist) which I found on Spotify. The original is sung by Luis Fonsi.
7:00 pm - 10:00 pm:
Date night dinner with my hubby. My son gets to have a dinner at a restaurant of his or our helper’s choice every Friday as his weekly unhealthy food treat.
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