Elena Kim

Elena has extensive experience advising clients on complex corporate and commercial mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and equity capital markets projects. Elena has specialist expertise in foreign investment. 

Elena has been recognised as a leading lawyer and for her significant contributions to the legal profession and the wider community. She was named in the Elite Women Report as one of New Zealand’s top female legal talent in 2021, 2022 & 2023, an excellence awardee at the NZ Law Awards for Young Private Practice Lawyer of the Year in 2018 & 2022, one of New Zealand’s Most Influential Lawyers in 2022 & 2023, a finalist in the Institute of Finance Professionals Emerging Young Leader Awards (2018), and she is the a winner of the prestigious International Bar Association scholarship, as the first and only New Zealander to win this award. 

Elena’s clients include private business, large multinational corporates, SMEs and start-ups. She is relationship-driven, pragmatic and commercial, and clients describe her as having the “ability to simplify and clearly communicate complex issues, which is second to none.” 

Clients trust Elena to help navigate complex transactions in a collaborative and efficient manner and is described by clients as having “working hard to understand our goals and concerns, as well as our fears and blind spots, so as to provide relevant advice and counsel through a process that comes with an overwhelming number of decisions”. 

Elena has represented New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific as a legal expert in numerous international events, including the International Conference on Ease of Doing Business, Korea Ministry of Justice Ease of Doing Business Conference and International Bar Association Conferences.

Elena also serves in various governance and strategy roles in the impact sector across New Zealand and is regularly invited to publicly speak on leadership, diversity, equity and inclusion.