About

Beginning as a tax attorney in a leading law firm in the south of Brazil, Fabio Ferreira Cunha transitioned to a corporate counsel in the airspace industry as an international attorney before moving into the healthcare industry. During his 11 years spent as legal counsel of Embraer, the fourth largest aircraft maker worldwide, he has risen from senior legal counsel to general counsel and vice president for the entire North America and Mexico subsidiary, living in Florida for five years. Afterwards, Cunha returned to Brazil to become legal and compliance director of a subsidiary of a large German pharmaceutical company, having to reorganise the legal department and create a compliance department. After five years he took on the role of general counsel, compliance officer and regulator of Danone in Brazil, one of the largest food companies worldwide. After two years he was invited to assume his present role as member of the Executive Committee of Dasa, the fourth largest laboratory chain worldwide and the largest in Latin America. Cunha manages a team of 60 at Dasa, and participates in all company strategic decisions as the board member, responsible for legal, compliance, government affairs, real estate, licensing and government contracts. Cunha has also implemented an entirely new management culture and digital processes. His team of lawyers now have clear financial targets and goals and evaluation is related to how much value (revenue or losses reduction) is effectively generated every year and reflected in the company’s results. He says that this change has had a significant impact on the bottom line of the company since it generates more revenue than the cost of the department. Cunha also implemented a new automated digital system across the function but particularly within the litigation portfolio. Also the non-complex contract agreements are done entirely by the system without human interference. This called for the recruitment of more business-oriented professionals who had more influence on the structure. Cunha’s team have also taken over the entire real estate management of the company, negotiating all rentals, with more than 800 stores and 20 factories, and all legalisation and licensing of such unities are managed under Cunha’s supervision. Cunha identifies that, ‘with all these changes we have a multidiscipline corporate affairs practice, handling many aspects of a back office operation, creating synergy and efficiencies, including also government affairs and its contracts, generating [a greater] compliance overview’.