With entrepreneurship running in her blood, Caroline has always been seeking the next big innovative challenge. As a young Canadian lawyer fresh out of McGill Law School, Caroline took the leap in moving to Asia in 1998 and has spent her life becoming an expert in Asian law with the goal to demystify Asia to SMEs and PE firms from the Western part of the world and contribute to their expansion in Asia.
It wasn’t long before she became the go-to source for people and SMEs and PE firms who want to understand how to grow the Asian market and navigate the Asian legal landscape successfully.
Today, she has an established reputation in the international business community as an entrepreneur of 5 start up over the last 2 decades and an expert advisor on M&A cross-border transactions, commercial law, technology transfer and intellectual property matters and has been the managing director of HJM Asia Law for the past 16 years.
In Caroline’s life, the only constant is growth.
She convinced her younger brother, Maxime, a trained industrial engineer, to join her in China in 2005 when they founded their first business, Jade & Co, a consulting firm for SMEs expanding in Asia offering engineering, legal, marketing and accounting services.
Later, in 2007, Caroline and Maxime founded AsiaTech QC, an automated quality control platform for engineering products manufactured in China, and significantly grew the value of the company, leading to its acquisition in 2013.
In 2010, the duo started Komaspec who is now a leading manufacturer of high-end metal and plastic industrial products based in Guangzhou, China. Today, the company boasts three state-of-the-art smart manufacturing facilities, employs 200+ workers, and serves more than 100 customers in more than 25 countries worldwide, recording 30% YoY growth with a turnover of more than USD 17 millions in 2022. At present, Caroline acts as board member of Komaspec.
A few years later, in 2016, she combined her entrepreneurial background with legal expertise, to bring to market ProsocecAsia, an innovative company providing secretarial, accounting, and compliance services for SMEs companies alongside an automated platform for compliance.
In 2015, she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and became a member of YPO in 2021.
Understanding the role of not just mentorship, but sponsors in achieving entrepreneurial success, Caroline set up her own non profit organisation in 2016. The Young E3 Entrepreneur Fund inspires and supports a new generation of young entrepreneurs between 16 and 25 years old, by connecting them with industry experts and sponsors who can help them build a strong foundation for business success. She raises funds to finance these projects through her runs and many other initiatives.
Viewing growth and knowledge sharing as two parts of the same equation, Caroline is a regular speaker at international conferences and has been a visiting professor at Université Laval (Canada), Bocconi University, and the Sorbonne Assas Law School. She has authored the practical book "Doing Business in China" published in French and English, and has been featured in numerous magazines and newspapers, including Bloomberg, the Straits Times, the Business Times, Les Affaires, and La Presse.
She remains an active member of the international business community, sitting on multiple boards of listed and private companies, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (President), the South Africa Chamber of Commerce in Singapore, the China Working Group of the International Bar Association, and is the appointed legal adviser of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. She is an independent director of Savaria (sis.to), a listed Canadian company in the mobility industry.