Hannah Cao ’03 Honored with FT Innovative Lawyers Award

Hannah Cao ’03, General Counsel of China’s Silk Road Fund, has been named one of the top general counsels in the Asia-Pacific region by the Financial Times. Honored at an awards gala in Hong Kong celebrating the FT’s Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific 2018, Hannah and her team were recognized as one of the most innovative in-house legal departments.

“The first lawyer at the sovereign wealth fund, Cao now oversees a team that supervises investments in projects which include Yamal LNG, a $27bn flagship liquefied natural gas development on the Arctic coast of Siberia in Russia,” said the FT. “She is a promoter of local legal talent and argues general counsel can become more influential in their organizations’ direction and values.”

Cao was honored by the Law School last February, along with Allen J. Grubman '67, one of the world’s most powerful entertainment lawyers, and Andrew Rausa '13, lead advertising and privacy counsel for Facebook. “To me, the legal education at Brooklyn Law School was transformational and empowering. This award is not just a recognition of my efforts, but also [a reflection of] the school’s strong international vision. It is a celebration of all our alumni’s commitment to making this world a better place,” Cao said at the time.

“Hannah has managed to do—and do well—in multiple languages what I can barely do in one,” said Professor Michael Gerber, remarking on her success at the Law School and her impressive career in the law that has taken her from major law firms in the United States to law firms in China, and then to the Silk Road Fund, China’s $40 billion fund that invests in infrastructure projects in developing countries in Central and South Asia. Cao, who joined Silk Road in 2015, was also named by Asian Legal Business magazine as one of China’s top GCs in 2016 and 2017.

“My job as general counsel of Silk Road Fund is exciting,” Cao said. “My team and I work on some of the most meaningful projects—putting into place critical infrastructures in underdeveloped locations and helping to de-bottleneck local economies. It is satisfying to see that my legal training is making a tangible impact on people’s lives around the world.”

While a student at the Law School, Cao was executive articles editor of the Brooklyn Journal of International Law and an International Business Law fellow, as well as a member of the Safe Harbor Project. Prior to joining the Silk Road Fund, Cao practiced law in New York and Beijing at international law firms, honing her experience in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, fund formation, private equity investment and capital markets.

Read the Financial Times story here.