Former legal and sales leaders from global technology companies, available on a fractional basis to innovators and growth-stage companies across Asia-Pacific and North America.
Cut to Clarity //
Legal & Regulatory Services
Fractional General Counsel
Ongoing legal support for high-growth organisations that need sophisticated in-house legal support and executive judgment, but aren’t yet ready to hire a full-time General Counsel. Work with a seasoned GC on strategy, deals, programs, risks and decisions — the expertise of a full-time GC, on a flexible basis.
Negotiation Support, Burst & Overflow
Senior negotiation support for cloud, AI, and other technology agreements, including burst and overflow coverage when deal volume spikes or your team needs extra capacity at short notice. Draw on deep experience in major hyperscale technology companies, but working with your existing workflows, playbooks and risk preferences.
Regulatory Strategy
Strategic support for companies operating in complex or evolving regulatory environments: policy development and white papers, regulatory engagement strategy, and support for companies navigating new jurisdictions, critical-infrastructure regulation, AI governance, data protection, and public-policy reform.
Strategic Business Services
Fractional Chief Sales Officer
Ongoing strategic sales leadership for technology companies that need senior commercial capability without a full-time hire. Work with a seasoned sales executive embedded in your business — setting direction, building pipeline, and driving sustained revenue growth on a flexible, fractional basis.
Go-to-Market Strategy & Advisory
Go-to-market strategy and advisory as a focused project engagement: from sales motion design and channel development to market entry planning and commercial structuring.
Discrete Problem Solving
Discrete, project-based commercial advisory and execution for specific challenges: a strategic customer pursuit, a partnership to negotiate, or a commercial model to refine.
How We Work
Senior talent only. All work is delivered by former senior legal and commercial leaders from global technology companies. No leverage pyramid, no junior training burden, no partner bottleneck — you get the senior person, every time.
Embedded, not external. We operate inside your workflows and tooling — under your playbooks, fallbacks and escalation norms — and calibrate our risk posture to match yours.
Execution-focused. Management-light and brevity-first. We step in quickly, move things forward, and aim to reduce friction rather than create it.
Complementary, not competitive. We don’t replace specialist advisers or internal teams; we complement them, and are used best where speed, context, senior judgment, and the ability to operate like a seasoned insider matter most.
Cost-effective. Senior, experienced in-house talent, without big-firm overhead or the costs of a full-time hire.
Easy to start. Most teams begin with a narrow engagement: a specific commercial or regulatory question, coverage of a defined contracting lane, or a single deal to close or customer to win.
Our Team
Stephen Cartwright | Principal
Stephen has worked at the intersection of law, regulation, public policy, emerging technologies and digital transformation in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region for two decades.
Before founding Distilled Advice, Stephen spent 11 years at Amazon Web Services, where he built and led a Legal team across 16 countries and served on the Asia-Pacific Leadership Team. He partnered closely with sales, marketing, public-sector and functional leadership teams to accelerate go-to-market execution, navigate complex regulatory environments and establish strong customer relationships. He was responsible for many of its largest enterprise deals, major regulatory engagements, and compliance programs, defined its global approach to critical-infrastructure regulation, helped establish its model for engaging public-policy stakeholders, and unlocked new verticals through law and policy reform in multiple jurisdictions.
Before AWS, Stephen advised Optus on products, privacy and marketing, and was an intellectual property and commercial litigator at a national law firm.
Stephen holds governance and advisory positions, including as a Director of Wildlife Health Australia and an Advisory Board Member for AI and robotics semiconductor company Lexchip. He is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the High Court of Australia, is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and a Certified AWS Artificial Intelligence Practitioner.
Today, through Distilled Advice, Stephen helps technology and other high-growth companies accelerate revenue, navigate complex regulatory environments, build successful teams, and drive safe and scalable growth across jurisdictions.
Justin Wong | Senior Counsel — North America
Justin is a senior technology and AI-focused legal leader with more than a decade of hyperscale experience. Before joining Distilled Advice, Justin spent 11 years at Amazon Web Services, where he led legal teams across ASEAN, India, and Korea and supported AWS’s private pricing programs across Asia-Pacific. He was responsible for some of AWS’s largest and most strategic transactions in Asia and played a central role in shaping approaches to AI, data protection, and antitrust/competition regulation across multiple jurisdictions.
Known for his decisive and commercial approach to risk, Justin partners closely with business, product, and go-to-market leaders to move quickly through ambiguity, land durable positions on novel regulatory issues, and enable scalable growth in highly scrutinised environments. His experience spans complex commercial transactions, high-stakes regulatory engagement, cross-border data and pricing strategies, and litigation oversight.
Justin began his career at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP advising on cross-border M&A. He holds a J.D. (with honors) from the University of Chicago Law School and an LL.B. (first class honours) from the London School of Economics. He is a New York-qualified attorney.
Now based in Toronto, Justin supports technology companies with burst, overflow, advisory and project-based work across North America.
Chris Merrigan | Senior Advisor — Sales & Revenue Growth
Chris is a senior commercial leader with deep expertise in enterprise technology sales and go-to-market execution. He spent more than a decade at Amazon Web Services, where he founded and led a dedicated sales team supporting a major enterprise software company, driving more than 20x growth over his tenure.
Chris brings first-hand experience building and scaling sales strategy in complex enterprise environments — including account planning, pipeline development, channel strategy, and cross-functional go-to-market alignment. He has worked extensively with technology companies navigating rapid growth, new market entry, and the transition from early traction to repeatable revenue.
Through Distilled Advice, Chris works with technology companies to define and sharpen commercial strategy, build repeatable pipeline, and accelerate go-to-market execution — on a fractional basis.
Distilled Advice 