Baker McKenzie has elected Sunny Mann, head of the firm’s international trade practice group, as its next global chair.
Mann will begin his four-year term in October and succeed Milton Cheng, who took the helm in 2019 following the death of Paul Rawlinson. The appointment sees the 6,500-lawyer firm’s leadership shift to London from Hong Kong, where Cheng is based.
Mann is a veteran of the firm of 25 years and primarily advises clients including numerous FTSE 100 and Fortune 100 businesses on compliance and investigations with respect to export controls, trade sanctions and anti-bribery rules. Earlier he worked in Baker McKenzie’s offices in Washington DC, New York, Sydney and Hong Kong. He also chairs the firm’s geopolitical risks taskforce and oversaw its support to clients responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mann will sit on the firm’s global management committee, which, effective 1 July 2025, will also include regional chief executives Alex Chadwick (EMEA), Colin Murray (Americas) and Steven Sieker (Asia Pacific), and partners Scott Brandman (New York), Amar Budarapu (Dallas), Pamela Church (New York), Matthew Dening (Riyadh), Andre Gan (Kuala Lumpur), Karen Guch (London), Isabella Liu (Hong Kong) and Christian Vocke (Frankfurt).
Commenting on his appointment, Mann said: “I am grateful to Milton, our current chair, and the outgoing leadership team for their years of dedicated service. I look forward to working alongside the incoming global management committee. Above all, I am excited to collaborate with my 13,000 colleagues across more than 70 offices globally. It is this collective, pan-global strength that gives me great optimism for our future.”
Baker McKenzie has undergone a period of sustained growth under Cheng, who has the distinction of being the firm’s first global chair to be based in Asia. Global annual revenue passed the $3bn mark for the first time in 2021 and in the year to June 2024 stood at $3.4bn, up from $2.92bn in FY19.
Cheng commented: “I am extremely proud of what we have achieved for our clients and our people in the past six years. I have no doubt Sunny will take Baker McKenzie to even greater heights, leveraging an impeccable track-record in building and leading a successful practice while championing our core values.”
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