Joanne Cheng
程婧雯
A Lawyer's Approach to Wealth Planning
Interview
Hear Joanne share her journey in her own words.
- Juris Doctor, Temple University Beasley School of Law (Conwell Scholar)
- New York State Bar Examination, passed 2019
- CFA Level I, passed 2019
- BA in Economics, University of California, San Diego (Provost Honors)
- Equity capital markets and fund operations background
- Native Mandarin and English; Intermediate Japanese
A Legal Foundation
Joanne earned her Juris Doctor from Temple University's Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia, where she was a Conwell Scholarship recipient and studied international law, corporate law, securities regulation, federal tax law, and constitutional law. She passed the New York State Bar Examination in 2019 and, in the same year, cleared CFA Level I. Her law degree followed a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, where she graduated with Provost Honors after concentrating on econometrics, monetary economics, antitrust and economic regulation, and law and economics. That pairing of legal training with economics is the backbone of how she reads a financial plan.
Professional Experience
Joanne began in the courts, serving as a judicial intern to Judge Ellen Ceisler at the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia, where she conducted research on civil and criminal matters and drafted judgments. She then moved into capital markets at ChinaLin Securities (002945.SZ), executing the issuance and underwriting of two ChiNext convertible bonds and a STAR Market IPO listing, before being appointed Secretary to the Chairman, coordinating with the board and securities regulators and helping drive a strategic transformation alongside McKinsey and BCG. She was later a founding member and Chief Marketing Officer at a Shenzhen fintech services company serving securities firms, mutual funds, and banks. Most recently, as Fund Operation Manager at GIL Fund Services in Hong Kong, she worked with external counsel and fund administrators on fund structuring and operations, and she now advises senior management as a consultant covering legal review, fund middle-office operations, and investment analysis.
A Legal Lens on Wealth Planning
Joanne's instinct is to read the fine print, then explain it plainly. A financial plan is, in the end, a set of contracts and structures, and her legal training means she looks at the terms, the regulatory context, and the downside scenarios before she looks at the illustration. Combined with her capital markets and fund experience, that gives clients a clear view of what they are actually buying and why it fits. A native speaker of both Mandarin and English with intermediate Japanese, she works comfortably with clients across Hong Kong and mainland China.