Focus on: My career

I’m a commercial lawyer with 15 years of professional experience working in a wide variety of sectors, including law firms, banks (Banco Davivienda), entertainment companies (Fox Entertainment Ltd), and technology companies (Uber and Deliverect). In 2015, I founded Diaz Escobar and Associates, a boutique law firm in Colombia that was specialised in commercial and corporate law – this experience gave the unique insight of being an entrepreneur, and awoke the rush for “building things from scratch” (little did I know that this rush was going to be my occupation for the years to come while working at Uber and Deliverect).

I made the jump to tech in 2016 when I joined Uber Colombia as regional counsel for the Andean Region (Colombia, Perú, Bolivia and Ecuador). I was responsible for overseeing the commercial legal affairs of the company in those markets, and I spent three years in that role. Among others, my biggest achievements during that time were the launch of Uber Eats in Colombia and Perú, the negotiation and execution of the Uber Eats deals with El Corral and McDonalds (biggest burger chains in the country), the negotiation and execution of the first partnership agreement with Grupo Aval to launch digital debit cards for drivers of the app, and the negotiation and execution of a partnership agreement with Repsol in Perú, to provide gas discounts to drivers of the app – if you go back in time and think about the regulatory pressure that Uber was under in 2016 (e.g. detractors arguing that Uber was providing illegal services), you will realise how significant these achievements were.

After three successful years in that role, one day I spoke to Uber’s General Counsel for LATAM (who was not my direct manager), and told him that I wanted something new, and that I wanted to explore the option of relocating abroad – which of course sounded like a moonshot, because in my mind, lawyers were restricted to work in the country where they graduate from law school, unless of course they validated their title abroad (which most of the times is quite a hassle, and requires a lot of time and effort). He immediately said that he was willing to support and sponsor my venture, and he found an opening for the role of “EMEA Regional Counsel for Uber Eats”, based in Amsterdam.

The idea of moving back to the Netherlands was a dream for me, considering that I lived in Tilburg when I studied my LL.M in International Business Law (from which I graduated with honours), and I completely fell in love with the country and with the “Dutch ways”. I applied for the role, like any other candidate, went through the interview process, completed a technical exam, and three months later Uber made me an offer to join the legal team in EMEA. I was the first Latin lawyer, in the history of Uber, to be relocated to another region – it was a big deal. I spent two years working in Amsterdam, and my role was basically to help design and structure the legal strategy for launching products in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

I initially was focused on the delivery business only, but when Covid hit, and given that I already had experience in the mobility business from my old days in LATAM, I also got involved in the mobility business for EMEA. During that time I was appointed as a regional point of contact to lead the launch of Uber Direct (last mile delivery solution offered by Uber Eats), and Uber Connect (package delivery service offered by Uber Rides) in the region – these were strategic products for the company to enable additional earning opportunities for couriers and drivers in the middle of the pandemic, and to help people and business thrive. Uber Direct was initially launched in the UK and France (where I supported the negotiations with McDonalds, Sainsburys, and Carrefour), and Uber Connect was launched in a couple of countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

This role was fantastic because it brought me closer to the regulations of more than 15 markets, it exposed me to a multicultural environment where I got to learn incredible things from amazing people, and it gave me the experience and confidence that I needed for a role like the one I currently have at Deliverect. While working at Uber I was contacted by Deliverect (which at the time was a small startup that was founded in 2018 and had raised its Series A and B rounds) – today Deliverect is a company with +300 employees, with presence in over 12 markets. They were looking for their first in-house counsel, and I was immediately hooked, especially because a company that young was for sure going to offer the opportunity to build things from scratch, and to have a lot of impact. After going through the interview process, and after speaking with the CEO and CRO, I was sure that I wanted to join Deliverect, and I did so in August 2021.

My first approach for the role was to fix the basics, and to create new contract templates to ensure that our relationships with customers and partners were bullet-proof. In November 2021 (when I still was the only member of the legal team) I was informed by the CEO that Deliverect was closing its Series D round (Series C was closed in April, right before I joined) for EUR 150M, at a valuation of EUR 1.4B. This was very exciting because the company was having a lot of traction with investors, and because it was my first experience structuring a funding round. The funding round was successfully closed in December 2021, which was by far a record time, as this process normally takes between 2 to 4 months.

That was, without a doubt, my biggest achievement in 2021. In December of that year, I hired the first associate counsel of the team, based in the Netherlands, and in May 2022 I hired the second one, based in Belgium. In 2022 the team focused on compliance, and on finding and fixing the infamous “cans of worms”, until the CEO informed me that we were acquiring a company called “Chatfood” in the Middle East, so the entire team started working to support the deal. This was my first time doing M&A in the Middle East, and I’m proud to say that the whole deal (including the due diligence process) was negotiated and signed in 6 months. In January 2023, I was promoted to global head of legal.