Chris Drake is our Managing Partner and the founder of the business. He grew up in the United Kingdom on a diet of Yorkshire puddings, Wensleydale cheese and Tetley Bitter. His move south, to study law at London University, was the start of a more interesting journey. He qualified as a solicitor with one of the major city law firms in 1986 and after private practice dived into the world of financial services working in-house at major investment banks and securities houses in the UK and overseas. However, the trademark of his 30 years of international business experience is in Asia Pacific with battle scars from engagements in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and most recently, Japan where, until the founding of DRAKE Partners, he was General Counsel and Head of Compliance / AML in Asia Pacific for a European investment bank. In that role he was responsible for all legal and regulatory affairs in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney and Shanghai for 16 years.

A holder of the Fitzmaurice Cup for advocacy, Chris has represented the United Kingdom in international law competitions and was somehow included in the 2014 "Legal 500" Top 100 In-House Counsel in Asia Pacific.

When he is not absorbed in client mandates you will usually find him in the kitchen with a glass of wine, a cookbook and some jazz piano albums or out pounding the streets on one of his 20 kilometre walks. He may also be the only person who has walked every street in Tokyo's Minato Ward. An "exercise" that took him a year. But not in one go.