Global law firm Reed Smith hired Josephine Chang as counsel in its financial industry group based in the firm’s New York office. Chang’s arrival marks a significant addition to Reed Smith’s asset and equipment finance practice and adds depth to the firm’s transportation practice and other financial services capabilities.
Chang joins Reed Smith after more than 20 years serving in several senior legal and management roles at GE Capital. Chang’s deep proficiency in asset and equipment finance includes vendor and inventory finance, transportation finance, all classes of equipment and deal structures and aircraft and marine finance. Most recently, she served as deputy general counsel at GE Capital, leading and partnering with a global team of in-house legal counsel and professionals in providing strategic and tactical legal, regulatory and governance guidance for various business units. These included healthcare and energy equipment manufacturing, technology and services companies GE Healthcare and GE Vernova and aviation company GE Aerospace’s liquidity management, global trade finance, supply chain finance and receivables finance programs, equipment leasing and surplus inventory remarketing transactions.
While at GE Capital, Chang also provided legal and regulatory guidance and support for separating and building the treasury function for GE Vernova and Aerospace. She provided financial services legal support for global supply chain finance, global trade finance, parent company credit and performance support, revolving credit facilities and other bank related arrangements, liquidity management involving cash pool arrangements, legal entity restructuring and corporate governance, sourcing and facility contract restructuring and management and business/functional policies and procedures, including legal and regulatory early warning system.
In addition to her extensive in-house experience, Chang has in the past served as outside counsel, with a practice that focused on representation of lenders, equity investors, domestic and foreign airlines, shipping and rail companies and other borrower/lessees in all types of financing transactions. This included an emphasis on debt and lease financings of commercial and corporate aircraft, ocean-going ships and other transportation equipment, secured and commercial lending transactions, private and public debt placements and syndicated loan facilities secured by commercial and corporate aircraft, oceangoing ships, brown water vessels and rail equipment registered in various Americas, EMEA and Asian countries.
Throughout her career, Josephine partnered with her in-house and external law firm colleagues and leveraged the collective power of the organizations in making impactful contributions to talent development programs, advocacy efforts with respect to developing laws in various jurisdictions, corporate reorganization projects, commercial councils and other corporate initiatives. This effort involved leading GE Law Department’s global equity, diversity and inclusion council and GE Capital’s Asian Pacific Allies & Friends Employee Resource Group. Chang has also been a volunteer teacher for Junior Achievement classes and Street Law’s civic and law classes in underrepresented communities. She served on the board of Street Law to advance justice through classroom and community education programs that empower people with the legal and civic knowledge, skills and confidence to bring about positive change for themselves and others. Chang was featured in GE’s first Annual Diversity Report in 2020.
“Josephine is highly respected in the asset and equipment finance community, and her arrival reinforces that we are a leading practice in this space,” Jodi Schwimmer, global co-chair of Reed Smith’s financial industry group, said. “Our clients who seek legal advice from our asset finance, equipment finance and transportation practices will benefit significantly from Josephine’s unique experience as in-house counsel for one of the world’s leading commercial finance companies and we look forward to the crucial role she will play in enhancing our capabilities to serve our clients effectively in this dynamic field. With Josephine joining our asset and equipment finance team to work with Rich Tannenbaum, who was a colleague of Josephine’s at GE Capital, Reed Smith broadens the scope of our subject matter expertise and deepens our experienced team.”
