Pickering Pacific

Before founding the firm in 2004, Jacques had worked on many M&A transactions in the U.S., Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

From 1991 to 1998, Jacques worked as a lawyer for Clifford Chance, one of the world’s largest business law firms. He was initially based in Clifford Chance’s Paris office before transferring to London. From 2000 to 2003, Jacques worked in senior M&A and financial roles for the H.J Heinz Company. He first worked at Heinz World Headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (U.S.) as General Manager in charge of Portfolio Planning and Analysis, and then in Melbourne (Australia) as Director, Planning & Business Development for Heinz Australasia.

Jacques holds an MBA from IMD in Lausanne (Switzerland), and an LL.M. in Business Law and an LL.M. in English and North American Comparative Law from University Paris I – Sorbonne. In 1990, he won the Francis LeFebvre Prize for the Best Young Business Lawyer and the first prize for a LL.M. Essay from the Institute of Comparative Law Studies.

Jacques has contributed articles on M&A-related topics to various publications and is a frequent speaker at regional conferences. He is also currently serving as Vice-President of the French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (FCCS).

View: What should foreign companies know to carry out acquisitions in Southeast Asia?

Richard joined Pickering Pacific in January 2011. Richard studied economics at the University of Aberdeen (UK)…

during which time he completed an internship at Lehman Brown in Shanghai (China). After graduating with M.A. (Hons) he worked for Deloitte & Touche where he qualified as a chartered accountant in 2006. He moved from Deloitte’s London based corporate finance advisory team to the M&A department of Fairfax I.S. PLC in 2008. At Fairfax he was involved in various investment banking mandates in many different sectors including: financial services, consumer goods and healthcare.

Joyce is a Chinese national and has been a director of Occient International, an advisory boutique based in Beijing, since 2002. She was previously an investment banker with JP Morgan in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York and also the CFO for a Newbridge-invested high-tech company in Beijing.

Joyce holds an MBA from IMD in Lausanne (Switzerland).

Peter has spent 37 years in international banking with Commerzbank before leaving the bank in December 2009 and settling in Singapore.

He served as the bank’s Managing Director for its Tokyo Securities business, General Manager of the London Branch, Group Managing Director for Multinational Corporates and led their Asian business as a Regional Board Member and then became its Vice Chairman for Asia. With half of his working career spent in Asia, Peter now looks after a portfolio of activities focused on foreign direct investments between Germany and Asia as well as some regional bank advisory work.

He is a former Chairman of the London Foreign Bankers Association, and Vice-President of the British Bankers Association and received the German Order of Merit in 2002 for achievements in German-British economic relations.

Jon Robinson is the Managing Director of Freshwater Advisers since 2009, which provides a source of independent and impartial advice…

…on a wide range of compensation issues for company boards, investors and management.
Prior to founding Freshwater, Jon led the Asia business of the Vanguard Group, one of the world’s largest investment managers.

Jon moved to Singapore in 1997 as Managing Director of the global consulting firm Watson Wyatt’s Singapore office where he had responsibility for the film’s South East Asia business. Before moving to Singapore, he lived in Indonesia for five years. For four years before that he was based in Hong Kong.

Jon served on the Singapore Central Provident Fund’s Advisory Panel from 2006 to 2008 as well as the government’s Economic Review Committee’s CPF group in 2002. He is a governor of Tanglin Trust School where he chairs the Staff Sub-Committee. He has chaired and still serves on the organising committee for the Singapore Cricket Club Rugby Sevens.

Jon graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Mathematics.

Sebastien Guillaud is the Managing Director of Soft Venture since October 2009, an advisory and investment firm assisting high growth potential SMEs accelerate in Asia.

Sebastien has a 15-year track record in turning around and growing various businesses in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

From 1994 to 2000, he held key finance positions at Valeo, in France, Mexico and Brazil. He left the automotive industry in 2000 to join an e-commerce start-up based in Paris and successfully expanded and turned around its business. In December 2001, he was appointed CFO at Welcome Real-time, and became CEO in April 2004. Welcome Real-time serves major banks in over 30 countries, and is a worldwide leader of card marketing software. In June 2007, Sebastien executed the trade sale of Welcome Real-time to one of the largest European Private Equity firms. He left the company in October 2009 to start Soft Venture in Singapore.
Sebastien holds a Masters degree in Management from EM Lyon, a leading European Business School.