As General Counsel and Company Secretary, Penny Koo spearheaded the transformation of AIA Singapore’s legal matters and contract management process to a fully digital legal service delivery platform that streamlines end-to-end legal service delivery, the first of its kind across AIA’s 18 country business units.

Under her leadership, AIA Singapore’s legal team introduced automated triaging, routing, and a self-serve platform – accelerating workflows and slashing legal contract turn-around times, enabling lawyers to redirect time from voluminous low risk/impact legal tasks to strategic counsel, upholding robust corporate governance and enterprise risk management. This digital transformation contributed to AIA Singapore’s resilient business performance in 2024, resulted to a 15% increase in Value of New Business and 52% increase in Annualised New Premium to USD$897 million.

Guided by her ethos to make legal work “faster, simpler, more connected,” Koo addressed three key business challenges with this model—budget, user-centred design, and enterprise adoption—through a data-driven business case tied to legal KPIs, targeted customisation for business and legal users, and sustained change management. Her team mapped pain points across contract drafting and transaction advisory, pre-empted issues through an FAQ/chatbot for real-time support, and ran implementation updates, video demos, and trainings for managers and business users to embed the new way of working.

Redefining legal’s role as a strategic partner, innovator, and driver of growth, Koo integrates legal from ideation to execution across technology, operations, distribution, and customer experience teams, yielded key achievements:

•    Integrating SGFinDex into the company’s consumer app. 
•    Implementing Claims EZ, a claims system, which saw more than 90% of claims e-submitted in 2025, with about 95% paid electronically.
•    Deploying iSMART+ app’s Customer Lifecycle Trigger module, generating leads with over 21% conversion rate, contributing to AIA Singapore’s strong business results.

As a champion of sustainable and responsible business growth, Koo ensures that every innovation her team introduces is rigorously risk assessed. As her team continues to deliver legal technology solutions that are safe, compliant, and aligned with AIA’s purpose of enabling Healthier, Longer, Better Lives, Penny proves that innovation, gate-keeping and robust business growth can go hand in hand.