John joined Vistra as General Counsel in the Hong Kong office in February 2017.  

John has over nineteen years’ experience working on a broad range of M&A and corporate finance transactions in Asia.  Prior to joining Vistra, he served as Chief Counsel Asia for Darby Overseas Investments, the PE division of US-based listed investment fund company Franklin Templeton. During his time at Darby, he was responsible for all legal and compliance matters, as well as overseeing all of its investments and divestments in Asia and Central Europe. Before Darby John was the General Counsel of Xinhua Sports & Entertainment Limited, a financial information and media company based in Hong Kong and focused on China (PRC). There, he made close to two dozen acquisitions in the PRC and the US, took two companies public and was involved on numerous key corporate, and banking and finance transactions.  In private practice, he was Senior Associate, Corporate and Banking at Norton Rose in Hong Kong, Beijing and Jakarta; and Associate, Corporate and Banking at Stikeman Elliot in Toronto,  New York and Hong Kong. 

John received an LLB from Queen's University, Ontario; attended the National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei Mandarin Chinese Training Centre; and earned a BA in Political Science from University College, University of Toronto. 

He is admitted to practice law in Canada, England and Wales, and Hong Kong.

His native language is English and he has limited working proficiency in Mandarin Chinese, having studied at the National Taiwan Normal University Mandarin Training Centre in Taipei Taiwan.