What are the most significant cases and transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

I joined Covestro in the second half of 2023. During the first months of 2024 we went through an on-site internal audit that had a wide and deep scope and involved almost all areas of the organization. The legal department was tasked to be the main point of contact with the auditors -who came from Germany-, which included coordination with the local teams for delivery of documents and information, meeting with the auditors and the auditees and following up on action items derived from the final audit report. For Covestro having the house in order is very important so to me this project, with some action items still ongoing, was both challenging due to being relatively new to the organization, and rewarding especially when we received a very good grade on the final audit report and very good comments from the auditors on the performance of our work as a company and also on how well the team is integrated and how all employees live our culture. Further, this exercise gave me a much better knowledge of the company, including the commercial operations cycle from start to finish, as well as the topics that are most important for Covestro and where the legal department can add value.

I have also been involved in securing the proper licenses and permits for our production site, located outside of Mexico City. I’m currently leading this project which has involved different areas and even outside counsel, as well as managing expectations from shareholders -both locally and abroad.

Finally, since I joined the company, I have been tasked with reinforcing our compliance culture. While the global program is robust, locally it can be improved so I have given some formal and informal talks about the importance of compliance, participated in team meetings to discuss certain specific topics, and most importantly I have gotten to know many of my coworkers to create and foster a work relationship based on trust so any and all complaints can be duly raised and investigated. In this regard, the policy of non-retaliation against people who raise complaints in good faith, and the possibility to raise them anonymously, have been fundamental so people can feel safe submitting such claims.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?  

We recently revamped our way of working as a team. We used to have documents scattered around hard drives and cloud storage which slowed down our work by spending time finding documents. Now, all documents are centralized in one single source of truth that can be accessed by the legal team -save for the confidential ones, which have restricted access- and our filing system was also improved, as we have categorized and organized better our hard copies and digital copies of important documents. This was done jointly with a third-party provider that helps us with the filing of documents.

What is a cause, business related or otherwise, that you care about, and why? 

When my wife and I found out we were expecting our first child we took it very seriously to make this world better for my daughter. When I participated in the hiring process at Covestro and by then being a dad to two girls, one of the key factors for accepting the offer was its mission to make this world a better place by becoming sustainable, adopting a circular mindset and having very ambitious goals to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050. It was clear that Covestro’s mission aligned perfectly with my objective for my daughters and for the next generations who will, hopefully, live in a better world.