Head of Legal & Compliance
Ascend Airways Malaysia Sdn Bhd
Malaysia
“Good GC's act beyond the law and learn the business from the bottom up.”
Leonard D’Cruz is a senior Malaysian legal practitioner with more than twenty years of
experience spanning aviation law, corporate and commercial transactions, regulatory
compliance, complex civil litigation and high-value dispute resolution. He currently serves
as Head of Legal & Compliance at Ascend Airways Malaysia Sdn Bhd (a part of Avia
Solutions Group – The World’s Largest ACMI Provider), where he established and leads
the airline’s legal, regulatory and compliance functions. His portfolio includes the
negotiation, drafting and execution of aircraft operating and finance leases with international
lessors, aircraft purchase agreements with major OEM, SGHAs for ground and technical
handling, engineering and maintenance contracts and a wide spectrum of commercial,
marketing, and branding agreements.
Over the course of his career, Leonard has become one of the few Malaysian lawyers with
deep operational and transactional experience in the commercial aviation sector. Leonard’s
aviation expertise extends to regulatory and compliance advisory work involving CAAM,
ICAO-aligned standards, international conventions, and cross-border aviation transactions.
Prior to joining the aviation sector full time, Leonard was a partner in private practice and led
his own firm. His litigation background includes acting as lead counsel in commercial,
contractual, banking, corporate, property, construction, real estate, shareholder disputes,
and insolvency matters. Leonard is also experienced in commercial arbitration and has
appeared as lead counsel in arbitrations involving Malaysian Government Standard Form
construction contracts and commercial arbitrations under both AIAC Rules, CIPAA and Fast
Track procedures.
Leonard holds a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from the Queensland University of Technology
(2001) and was admitted as an Advocate and Solicitor of the High Court of Malaya in 2003.
”It is tremendously rewarding setting up legal and regulatory departments from scratch.”