Focus on inclusive leadership

Claudia Gonzalez is the general counsel and external affairs officer of SMU, since June 2022. SMU is a retail company with operations in Chile and Peru. She currently leads a team of approximately 22 lawyers, journalists, political scientists and professional staff. With more than 15 years of experience in the in-house profession, Claudia has worked in different countries and has led other areas of the companies where she has worked in addition to legal.

We are experiencing uncertain scenarios in the world and Chile, which leads us to face new and different challenges. There are five elements that are important to develop in an in-house team in order to successfully face these challenges: Flexibility, Closeness, Digitisation, Inclusive leadership and Prevention.

The Flexibility to quickly adapt to the changes that the business faces is a fundamental element in the team’s ability to respond to any obstacle with suitable and practical solutions for the business. And this has to be accompanied by a strong feeling and work of closeness with the business. Whatever the industry in which the in-house lawyer works, needs to deeply understand the mission and strategy of the company, its culture, its processes, who are its customers, what they want and seek from our company, and visit the stores and facilities to understand what the employees do. This is the only way to better accompany the growth and development of the company and provide the best advice that the business needs in a timely manner.

On the other hand, digitisation plays an important role in adapting to new challenges, the application of new digital tools helps to make efficient processes, to spent time to relevant issues, to understand digital tendencies, and to contribute to the environment by saving paper. An important part of being digital is putting the focus on the customer. Focusing on the client means integrating our legal efforts with the business, leveraging client information in a better way, and prioritising client experiences in all our decisions.

A fundamental factor in the success of an in-house team is the inclusive leadership, which implies seeking greater diversity in the teams in terms of gender, origins, ages and professions. However, having diverse teams in an organisation is not enough to obtain all the benefits that diversity brings. There must be an inclusive and open environment that guarantees equal treatment and equal opportunities to all, so that the people can really contribute the most with each of their capabilities, their different ideas, experiences, visions and perspectives. Also, this allows a better collaborative work and knowledge exchange, as well as the reduction of discrimination. And this inclusive leadership that each lawyer works also seeks to transcend outside the company by motivating and helping law firms, which support the company, to seek that diversity and give visibility to talented lawyers.

Finally, to accompany the sustainability of the company, it is required that the internal lawyer is always looking at the risks, even projecting future risks, and working on how to prevent or reduce them, prioritizing the role of the preventive lawyer over the reactive one.