Legal and corporate affairs manager CAM SUR (Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panamá) | Coca-Cola FEMSA
Maricel Alvarez Chavarría
Legal and corporate affairs manager CAM SUR (Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panamá) | Coca-Cola FEMSA
Team size: eight
What are the most significant cases or transactions you and your team have been involved in?
Coca-Cola FEMSA is the public bottler with the largest volume of sales within the Coca-Cola System, having social and environmental well-being as the highest value of the company as well as the generation of economic value. As a company with a well-rounded beverage portfolio, we have the vision of becoming a global ecosystem by developing omnichannel, consistent and sustainable organism. Our strategic growth is driven by our purpose to find the most efficient and sustainable way to find the preferences of the customers and clients. We have worked on major shared loading projects, including the one partnered with Monster INC and Cervecería Panamá S.A.
In line with our strategic framework, we continue to transform our operating models by introducing new designs, deploying the most initiative model, and enabling innovative operations by digitalised processes and innovative technologies. To provide personalised service to our client and customers, we utilise different technology platforms such as Whatsapp, the mobile app Coca-Cola en tu hogar, and other mobile tools.
To build strategic frameworks across our value chain, we are constantly searching for the opportunities to build prosperous business models with new business partners. In addition, Coca-Cola FEMSA legal is creating new environment of remote working where direct distribution process is more complex than its physical working by generating sustainable growth.
Even in the best-case scenario, COVID is likely to have far-reaching ramifications. How are you safeguarding the long-term health of the business?
We prioritise and ensure the safety and well-being of our employees, customers, consumers, and communities by taking the necessary action in response to the global health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Given the nature of our long-term planned projects, it was challenging to handle the unexpected but possible breach of contracts during the pandemic. However, our reputation as a trusted business partner allowed us to overcome these difficulties by executing a win-win strategy.
Implementing protective and safety measures throughout our factories and distribution centres, we reinforced prevention guidelines and protocols. For those whose activities are key to our business operations, we tried our best to provide all the necessary supplies and products to safeguard their health.
What do you think are the biggest risks facing your industry now and how are you preparing your team and organisation to deal with them?
We take challenges as opportunities, guided by our purpose, our aspiration is to become an integrated commercial beverage platform that works seamlessly. This means that as a legal team, we face multiple challenges simultaneously: modification in permits, adjustments in response times, linking the legal to the digital to fully convert the company into a digitised system, adjusting the contracts to the new scenarios, generating multiple legal and compliance documents including privacy policies, terms and conditions and clauses to defend the interests of both the consumer and the company.
Legal and corporate affairs manager | Coca-Cola FEMSA