About

The Microsoft legal team in Brazil deals with a large number of concurrent issues at any one time, and its in-house ranks are correspondingly filled with highly competent individuals who are comfortable in a number of areas in addition to being specialists in many. The most senior lawyer in the team is Alessandra Del Debbio who leads seven lawyers, two interns and two assistants. Of particular note within the team includes Marcio Goncalves, who led an innovative law enforcement tool project for the team, which Del Debbio claims is the ‘single most impressive innovation that the legal team has created in the recent past’. The influence the team has had in significant transactions for Microsoft Brazil are vast, however mentioned by Del Debbio as being particularly important are with regards to ‘Rio Olympics 2016, a government security program, partnerships with the Brazilian government on education, another emblematic educational project involving a foundation in the free trade zone of Manaus and a memorandum of understanding between Oncoclinicas and our advanced technology labs’. Diana Cesaretti Silveira, legal director for commercial licencing, is an excellent example of this. Her brief includes both supporting the sales team with clients in the finance and manufacturing industries, but she also deals with regulators and industry associations in discussions on privacy, security, compliance, and transparency, among others. Similarly, vice president of legal and corporate affairs Alessandra Del Debbio and legal and corporate affairs attorney Régis Gasperi stand out for their success in supporting the software behemoth’s activities in Brazil. Del Debbio stood out in particular for her high level experience gleaned from a number of prior senior in-house legal roles, and Gasperi for his immense specialist knowledge in business legal affairs. Elias Abdala is also noted for ‘leading the most complex and socially impactful project on the assignment of Nokia Education Foundation’, further showing the team’s ethical standards. Microsoft’s Latin America manager speaks highly of the team providing feedback about the legal and corporate affairs team saying that it ‘is one of the very few legal teams I have worked with that I can say exactly what each one does, and that I can count to help us find solutions and sell more’.