About

Guillermo Grela initially joined Avon in 2011 as its senior legal manager and later became the legal and government affairs director in 2018, covering Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Uruguay. Avon is a multinational cosmetics company with well-known brands such as ANEW, Avon Care, Skin-So-Soft, and Advance Techniques. Globally, Avon philanthropy has donated more than US$957m to date as one of the world’s largest supporter of women’s causes. As the company’s legal and government affairs director, Grela conducted a thorough risk analysis of the corporation’s business to determine the legal team’s responsibilities and recruited the team members accordingly. Together the team successfully used metrics to evaluate performance of the legal function on different aspects, for example, contract lifecycle, number of lawsuits, amount paid versus amount claimed in lawsuits, as well as legal spending as a percentage of sales. The legal department has also engaged two legal process outsourcing (LPO) firms, one in Argentina and the other in Chile, in order to tackle the increased demand for mid to low-complexity contracts, which represent a labour intensive process of drafting, negotiating and reviewing repetitive and standardised documents. Additionally, the legal team launched an intranet website in 2017, with a goal to strengthen the team bond with the business by conveying legal information in an appealing way. The webpage is updated on a monthly basis and contains five sections, including: “legal in 5”, “in other function’s shoes”, “if you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters”, “meet your lawyer”, and “leave your query”. Heading the legal department, Grela has been involved in a number of crucial transactions during the last three years. One of them is the closure of business in Bolivia. ‘It’s a very sensitive matter, with complex legal ramifications in a different cultural scenario’, he comments. Summarising his team’s achievements, Grela says: ‘We have reshaped the business perception of the legal function by showing a real service attitude towards the business and its goals. We have become a strategic partner instead of a pure legal advisor and are able to anticipate problems by being proactive and participating in different projects from the very beginning’.