Team size: 120

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

In the past several years, financial entities have been rethinking their business models by making them more dynamic and empathic to clients’ needs. We have not been the exception to this, and I have reinvented myself and accompanied the corporate strategy and the development of commercial models in a more visible manner. The main challenge in this path is attracting and retaining legal talent who embody our culture.

Legal professionals in the company must not only have the abilities and technical sufficiency characteristic of this profession, but also the soft skills that complement their technical formation. Such soft skills include communication and the use of simple, assertive, and straightforward language before diverse audiences; adequate relationship management; working in an agile manner; and promoting innovation.

In which ways have you attempted to bring the legal department closer to your business colleagues?

Among the initiatives that we promote to bring the legal team closer to the commercial teams are, among others, inviting the commercial vice presidents to periodically share their commercial strategy and align it with the strategy of the legal vice presidency in order to refine goals.

The use of a segmentation model to legally advise the commercial teams of the organisation has facilitated the provision of tailored services, allowing the incorporation of models, such as legal design and legal technology, in certain segments, simplifying legal alternatives and making legal matters simpler for our clients. We believe that the synergy between the legal and commercial teams ensures successful and sustainable businesses that bring favourable results for the entire organisation.

What are some of the most significant cases and transactions you have been involved in recently?

During the year 2022, banks in Guatemala agreed to start an organised process of dismantling the offshore operations in the region. We participated in this country agreement and undertook an organised process to liquidate the operation that was held through Mercom in Barbados. The legal team accompanied the entire strategy from start to finish to ensure that the transfer of the portfolio, deposits, and accounts of the financial statements between the two banks in the two countries complied with regulatory requirements.

The legal team has accompanied the evolution of the organisation’s corporate governance and sustainability model, legally advising entering into the sustainable finance protocol that was signed at the end of 2022 by about 20 companies in Guatemala (us being one of them), through the leadership of Centrarse and IDB, which seeks to contribute to strengthening the role of the corporate, financial and capital market sectors in investments and products aligned with sustainable economic development, prioritising the promotion of equity, social inclusion and gender, and favouring the fulfilment of the country’s goals in climate and social matters.

At the level of female empowerment, I have actively worked in the last three years as part of the Transforma program, an initiative of Guatemala’s private legal teams, that seeks to provide tools to empower women lawyers in different sectors of the economy, working in mentoring and training spaces to raise the level of awareness about the role that women have in the legal sector and the opportunities to grow professionally.