About

Fernando Rascov Lodi started his career in private practice mainly responsible for commercial litigation, having Brazilian and multinational banks as his biggest clients. After eight years working at a law firm he had the opportunity to work for Sherwin-Williams and was responsible for commercial consulting, contracts, corporate and environmental law. With time he became responsible for complex commercial litigation, as well as criminal law and government affairs. After five years working for Sherwin-Williams he spent a year at TOTVS (a Brazilian ERP company) and, in 2012, returned to Sherwin-Williams to become legal director for the Latin America South region. In the last six years, Lodi has improved the legal function of the company by increasing efficiency, saving money in legal fees – a 40% reduction – to reducing accruals by 20%, and reducing the lead time in analysing contracts from 30 days to one day. According to Lodi, ‘the main changes were related to changing the mentality of the team. By being more business-oriented and “less” lawyers, knowing your business, you can be more practical and fast and, with that, present a much efficient service’. In the last two years, Lodi says that the most important issue was complex litigation, started from a past acquisition, that brought to the company a 10% saving in relation to the original amount claimed, which ended almost a dozen parallel discussions and disputes related to this acquisition. He adds, ‘in-house lawyers have to be less and less lawyers, and truly executives or employees. Know your business, your client and, combining all of that, be the best and most ethical professional you can be’.