About

Stefan Franken, general counsel at CAP, started his career at the Santiago based law firm Alcaíno, Rodriguez y Sahli Abogados with a practice in corporate and commercial law, specifically M&A, financing and general corporate counsel. In 2007, he joined CAP, the parent of a Chilean business group in the mining, steel production and processing, and infrastructure industries. After 10 years in the legal department, he was promoted to general counsel in 2017. That same year, he was awarded a Master of Laws degree from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. Franken identifies that one of the most legally complex challenges he has faced in his career thus far was the incorporation of Mitsubishi Corporation as a minority partner of CAP and its subsidiary, the iron-ore mining company Compañía Minera del Pacífico. He says that ‘in this context, I was fortunate enough to be involved in the planning, negotiations, drafting and execution of the entire transaction and its ancillary documentation. After Mitsubishi’s incorporation as partner, the challenge has been focused on maintaining our good relationship with sound corporate governance policies’. He identifies that one of CAP’s main concerns is sustainability and corporate governance. With that focus in mind, since 2017, Franken has been a member of the advisory board of the Corporate Sustainability Program at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, the objective of which is to promote the achievement of sustainability objectives for the largest companies in the country. Franken is overseeing a period of change within the legal department at CAP as it undergoes a process of modernisation. Firstly, the legal department is in a process of digital transformation, which largely consists of data and workflow management through third-party technological tools. He explains that ‘we expect this newly created system will make legal work more efficient, faster, traceable and reliable’. Additionally, the legal team is increasing in numbers, and Franken is overseeing the process of creating a new compliance division, which will work closely with the risk management and auditing departments. The objective of this division will be to implement and manage the company’s compliance programs, which are mainly the company’s crime prevention model, covering money laundering, terrorism financing, bribery, disloyal administration, unfair dealings, and the voluntary antitrust compliance program. In the words of a nominator, ‘Stefan Franken leads all the legal work of one of the largest Chilean industrial conglomerates and one of the 30 most important listed companies on the Santiago Stock Exchange, which owns the largest steel manufacturer and the largest iron-ore mining company of Chile, among other operative companies. He oversees national and coordinates international legal work for the whole group of companies and their own in-house counsel. He is an extraordinary negotiator and excellent leader’.