Gerardo Manzaneda Rojas is the National legal advisor of Plan International, with more than 9 years of experience in the field of corporate legal advice, he has a master’s degree in business law from the Universidad Privada de Bolivia, and a Diploma in National and International Corporate Contracting also from the Universidad Privada de Bolivia. He has completed a series of leadership, negotiation and conciliation programmes, with solid experience in consulting and leadership in the purchasing / contracting area, inter-institutional cooperation agreements, labour law, insurance and negotiation, with excellent conflict resolution skills. In his current position, Gerardo is responsible for ensuring that Plan International’s operations in Bolivia comply with the law, as well as acting as legal counsel to the Country Leadership Team. Gerardo happens to be a fan of the seventh art and reading, spending his free time traveling with his wife and son, and being part of the meetings of the leadership team of Plan International Bolivia.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved the way your legal team works and did not come at a huge cost?

The automation of certain routine activities in the legal area leads to an improvement in performance as well as increases the amount of attention we can provide to our internal clients. Together with our IT department, we are working on the creation of a system that can generate contract requests, for example labour and civil, and in turn automatically fill in the pre-prepared templates. This will streamline our process and provide greater agility in the generation of contracts that are required on a recurring basis. The system did not come at a great cost to our organisation since the development was entrusted to our in-house IT team. After an initial implementation phase in Bolivia, our intention is to replicate this system across our other offices in the region.

What are some of the key developments that have affected your business over the past year?

The high labour protectionism that governs Bolivia creates a degree of labour immobility for workers despite being in contradiction with labour regulations themselves. This situation makes decision-making difficult for employers who need to make adjustments to their structure, which in-turn causes economic losses for all those business areas that are continually involved in labour processes.

How do you think the internal legal role will evolve in the coming years?

With the advent of AI, the corporate lawyer must adapt their role to the new tools that are being introduced, for example, opting to minimise times that in turn generate savings in operational costs. Technological tools that guarantee efficiency are the new challenge we face as these tools must go hand in hand with comprehensive, preventive advice from in-house counsel with a vision aligned to risk management according to the needs of each client.

Do you use any “legal technology” products and, if so, for what areas of your work do you find them most useful?

The contract preparation system that we developed within our organisation has resulted in benefits across our teams including HR as well as administration and programmes.