As we live in a fast-paced world today, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

The first one is open mindedness, to basically abandon the classical position of waiting for the business partner, and then provide an opinion. Today, legal personnel are part of the equation, of the business itself. As such, we need to be prepared to work in a complex environment, proposing ideas, taking some risks, being responsibly smart, having better instincts at calculating risks, and help business partners choose a good direction, preparing them for anything that can happen. We share the risks we take with the company, but also prepare on an ethically basis, and we must protect and do the best for the company.

Another thing that I believe is very important for an in-house lawyer is not to understand, in full, the entire business, but to have this holistic view where we at least have minimum knowledge of finance operations or human resources, among other areas, to assist other company departments, in order to have this feeling of working towards our growth. In-house counsel are no longer simply lawyers, but more than that. So, we need to develop this new vision of how to approach our business. Even though you’re not an expert, you need to have some sort of minimal skills to operate and provide valuable guidance and counselling to other departments such as finance or marketing.

How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values? Are you likely to reconsider what firms you work with based on this?

I think that is an important part of our work, as we also have a duty of fitting outside people into the strategy of The Coca Cola Company. For that, we need to have a proper knowledge about the business, external counsel need to understand our discomforts and weak points, and to work with us in finding better solutions, without exposing the company. As they work closely with us, there is a synergy between us, as if they are part of our organisation. So, we always look for law firms that align with that spirit of belonging with us, which is very important, because they complement what we do internally. Sometimes, they have different opinions, and because they are experts, we need to consider those different points of view during decision-making processes. I would say that we would only ever consider law firms that fit those requirements and put in practice a working model at least very similar to ours.