About

Rodrigo Mackenna Cooper has been central to the blockbuster deals that Thiess Chile has inked in the past 24 months. ‘Last year Thiess negotiated and awarded a massive mining service contract with Antofagasta Minerals to operate the Encuentro pit in Minera Centinela’, he explains, ‘while this year we are involved in the negotiation of a number of extremely high-value contracts’. Mackenna Coopers’ arrival at the company in 2018 was a catalyst for this ramping up of in-house legal activity in the region, as he took on the role of general counsel for Chile and America: ‘With my arrival, the creation of the legal department in Chile as a new structure inside the company was possible. This has positively affected different areas of the company when they understood the usefulness and importance of this new tool that they have at their disposal to prevent issues. It has also influenced the company’s financial matters, reflecting a notable decrease in all kinds of litigation and associated costs, substantial savings in contractual penalties and lower external legal costs’. His current role is merely the latest chapter in an extremely exciting and diverse career that laid the groundwork for his extremely competent work at Thiess Chile. Focusing on mining, energy and construction, and always an in-house lawyer, his work has included roles with SK Comercial, Australian mining company Transfield Services (now Broadspectrum) and then Ferrovial Servicios after the latter’s acquisition of Broadspectrum. Now installed as what he considers ‘the biggest mining services provider in the world’ in Thiess, Mackenna Cooper continues to display his rarely matched abilities as a general counsel in the mining sector in one of the top jobs this sector has to offer.