Team size:      750 employees. 

 What are the major projects or initiatives you have worked on that you are most proud of?  

 I have been a legal manager for 18 months at Banco de Finanzas, Sociedad Anónima, after having led a successful career in the public and private sectors. In the public sector, among another achievements, I drafted the “Financial Administration and Budgetary Regime Law” and participated in the drafting of the “Public Sector Administrative Contracting Law” and the “Foreign Service Law”. I also represented the State of Nicaragua in international litigations before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Central American Court of Justice. In the private sector, my involvement with banking matters dates back twenty-five years, having worked as an internal and external lawyer for different banking institutions. I have shared the experience of those years in teaching, at the university master’s level, having written the main legal works of the country on banking, movable collateral and testamentary matters. 

What measures has your company taken to embed sustainability practices into its core business operations, and how does the role of the general counsel contribute to driving and ensuring sustainable practices within the company? 

 Banco de Finanzas, as a regulated and supervised entity in Nicaragua, is subject to a legal and regulatory regime that is constantly evolving, which requires it to adopt legal measures of different nature for the proper management of the risks inherent to the banking industry and operations. Issues related to technological service platforms, protection of consumer rights, prevention of money laundering, application of international sanctions, among other topics, are highly topical.  

Additionally, Banco de Finanzas was recently acquired by a financial group (Promérica), which has imposed on the banking institutions that make up the group the need to create and develop an organisational and operational integration process, which raises complex and novel legal issues that must be resolved with creativity and legal certainty. For this, the legal departments of the banks involved are playing an important role  

In your opinion, what are the main trends that are salient in your country currently?  

The monetary and financial system in Nicaragua is undergoing a process of institutional re-engineering, which poses new developments in terms of the institutional organisation and nature of the legal powers attributed to the institutions in charge of each subsector. Similarly, in criminal and criminal procedure matters, new figures are being implemented which, although they arise from international instruments and are recognised practices in third countries, in Nicaragua they are presented as novel issues that require expert legal management to provide solutions in daily operations. 

What is a cause, business-related or otherwise, that you care about, and why?  

My main personal concern and interest throughout the last decade has been to raise the level of understanding and management of the operations of banking institutions among colleagues and the bank-using population. This has led me to publish various widely read books on the subject and to teach master’s courses, benefiting almost a thousand colleagues who, in one way or another, are involved in banking contracts.