About

Since joining Grupo EMI (now wholly owned by Falck) in 2013, Nicolás Ruiz Moreno has made a significant and positive impact on the global leader in ambulance services’ operations in Colombia. As such, in 2018, he was entrusted with leading the corporate affairs of Falck entities in the region in addition to his original role of legal director. Ruiz is credited for consolidating of the legal area in the region as a key ally of the business. ‘Now, the legal area is fundamental for any decision in the company’, he explains. ‘The good thing is that once the area was consolidated I can be a part of the development of new business ideas, which allows me to help mould the project within the legal parameters and look for solutions, instead of receiving the finished project just for the legal ok. This has moulded me to have a more open mind-set as well as a business prone approach from the legal perspective’, he adds. With the legal function placed firmly in compay’s operations, Ruiz was able to contribute on some of the organisation’s key developments: ‘In the past three years we acquired two different companies in the healthcare sector, which helps the group provide a more integral and diverse service to its clientele and the market. We managed to negotiate two significant agreements becoming the providers of the airport firefighting services at two major international airports in Brazil’. Ruiz impressed peers in seamlessly overcoming the challenge of bringing the acquired companies on board with the legal structure and operation of the Falck and EMI. He is also recognised for helping the management team navigate the company during the creation of a new union in the company. ‘This entailed the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement, bearing in mind that a very high percentage of the cost of our companies is labour based. Therefore, the impact of the collective bargaining agreement in the financial results of the companies is very significant. Nevertheless, we managed to reach an agreement with the union, for a three year term, which was acceptable to both parties’, he explains. Before his current role, Ruiz enjoyed a spell in-house at Pacific Rubiales Energy (today Frontera Energy). Before that he had seven successful years at the Colombian offices of Baker Mckenzie.