About

Can you briefly explain how the legal team is structured, highlighting key individuals and their role within the department?

We provide legal support and guidance to the business aligned with our guidelines and policies, to minimise the company’s exposure to legal risk. Nevertheless, being part of a highly regulated industry we have divided our experience and service into three core functions: advice and strategy, legal operations and compliance. Each member of the team plays a key role in each subject matter for instance:

On legal operations, Yanina Cordero Pizarro our corporate counsel is responsible for all transactional matters, not only drafting and/or reviewing all sorts of agreements but also overseeing retail operations regulatory needs, and; last but not least supporting all public tender processes.

On compliance, Daniel Quiros Zuniga our legal compliance officer is responsible for helping implement the company’s compliance strategy, providing internal customers and their departments with compliance training and obtaining the optimal legal protection whilst also safeguarding the company’s reputation in compliance.

As general counsel, I proactively advise the business and its management on legal and compliance implications of business strategy, identification and communication of legal requirements to enable efficient decision-making at a leadership level, while evaluating and balancing legal risks with business needs.

What recent political, economic or regulatory changes in Central America have impacted your company and the team the most?

Costa Rica has faced the effects of a historic financial crisis. Over the past decade, government spending has surpassed fiscal income. Thus, fiscal deficit has had a deep impact on economic risk ratings (Fitch, S&P) which in return has affected foreign investment and trust over the growth rate and development of the country. Tax reform might have been the most important piece of legislation in the past year, a necessary step to restore confidence and balance the struggling financial situation. Economic reactivation is a major concern at the moment.

Furthermore, current political leadership in Costa Rica has shown traces of tendency toward market interventionism, comprehensive antitrust action on certain relevant economic sectors like banking, telecommunications, public transportation, and health. Also, Costa Rica is managing certain structural changes on a wide diversity of areas to enable the accession process to the OECD, whereas just this month congress enacted an antitrust law reform and a criminal law reform to battle anti-corruption.

How significant is collaboration within the legal team and how does that improve output?

The members of the legal team must be aligned, informed, and in direct contact with each other at all times. Being a team of three implies the need of efficiency and control over a wide array of day-to-day matters and issues, thus a distribution of tasks among the team members lined up with the core functions is essential.

Isolation can be toxic and can impair the lawyer’s growth and career development, obstruct communication and create unintended obstacles for the advancement of business objectives. All of us must be on the same page to be productive. Our output is improved by mentoring and knowledge sharing, at present, this is done on one-on-one basis, as we have not leveraged on technology just yet. We are careful to reduce inefficiency and try to eliminate workflow cycles by asking the right questions at the right time.

What are the key challenges the legal team faces operating in the health and wellbeing sector?

This is a highly regulated industry under constant monitoring of health authorities which, by the way, on the other side is subject to aggressive innovation. Understanding the tools, market regulators and their approach demands the team to be constantly updated on trends, demands also constant monitoring of initiatives that modify the framework which in turn might impact the business.

Another challenge comes from mobile technologies used by the end consumer which defy the need to enter a brick and mortar pharmacy. Shortly, innovation will provide patients and clients in general with information to deal with diagnoses or even connect with physicians without the need to meet in person, therefore information sharing brings up data privacy challenges to the industry.

Focus on… team building

During the course of my career working with multinational companies in very different industries and cultures, I have had the privilege of meeting wonderful people, devoted professionals, and friends. I had to build legal teams from the ground up, to meet business needs. Such an endeavour required me to overcome a wide variety of obstacles, for instance, determine what will work: centralised, decentralised or hybrid organisation, develop the right profile of counsel which will ensure the lawyer will cope, adjust to the company’s culture and that his or her transition to the in-house role will be smooth and efficient. Also, ensuring a service of quality and responsiveness across the board, which meant addressing uniform and standardised solutions in multiple jurisdictions simultaneously. On the other hand, such experience allowed me to understand and embrace diversity, not only of gender, which is an obvious starting point; but a diversity of background and cultural heritage. Such differences have allowed the members to understand how different perspectives and opinions enrich the discussion and thus the outcome of any proposed solution. It is important to hear a different point of view so that from our role within the company, the business could adapt and develop sensitiveness to a particular need. On a personal note, diversity allowed me to understand how meaningful our role is while debating and exchanging knowledge to pursue a common goal, and; how important diversity is to developing sound professionals and develop career paths. I paid attention to all of those details and learned from them. I selected two extremely talented professionals in Cuestamoras Salud, both from different backgrounds and areas of expertise, but above all human beings with hopes, goals, and dreams; who speak what they feel, think and believe openly, directly and respectfully. Overall they embrace legal quality, dedication, and diversity while providing an outstanding and sound judgment. Each of them has their own way to add value continuously to a collaborative environment which in turn prevents any legal contingency, which may disrupt the advancement of the business.