Team size: 90

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Faced with a situation of instability, such as, for example, the last global health crisis that hit, among other businesses, retail, banking and real estate, which are precisely the main lines of business of Ripley Corp, the key to success was flexibility, which allowed us to adapt to the crisis situation that our customers were experiencing and consequently how the company interacted with them, the latter being necessary to resolve the situation of instability.

This meant challenging the way in which business was traditionally done, responding to the concerns of the different regulators in times of instability, so that they would partner in the new strategies and thus give continuity to the operation, this is where the initiative in terms of labour, sanitary, products, remote accessibility and outsourcing that allow the delivery of products outside the offices, stores and branches played a key role. The above notwithstanding the fact that the entire company in its different areas was guided to operate within the frameworks of the different specialised legal systems, and where they did not exist due to the unprecedented nature of the situation, to apply an innovative criterion but always with a support in the more general legal systems.

In addition to the difficulty implied by the creativity of the legal and compliance areas, these areas are also responsible for controlling and guarding the risk appetite that the board of directors sets for an unstable situation, since the pressure from the different business areas is very strong to overcome the situation, they are the main impulse to get out of a difficult situation but many times without taking into account that the solution could generate a situation of regulatory non-compliance affecting the rights of third parties, which is nothing more than a way of prolonging the crisis, since the consequences generally come to light once the apparent situation has been overcome, making the instability longer and its consequences more unpredictable. This is a second task of the legal areas which, together with flexibility and creativity, allow the company, when facing a crisis, to have the tools to face it, but at the same time to ensure that these solutions do not generate an effect that could be likened to a remedy that makes the effects of a disease invisible but compromises the future of the patient. In medical terms, the aim is to overcome the crisis and live and, in commercial terms, the company must overcome instability and be sustainable over time, and it is desirable that it emerges stronger from the crisis.

How do you prioritise diversity and inclusion within your legal department, and what initiatives have you implemented to foster a more inclusive and equitable work environment?

Personally, I do not believe in gender or minority quotas in environments such as legal and compliance management, I understand their usefulness in areas that are not very specialised or where culturally it has been difficult for a certain gender or sector of the population to access, such as mining, armed forces or construction, but in areas such as legal I believe in meritocracy without any kind of barrier or safeguard. The real question is how to avoid any bias or preference other than the skills or competencies of the applicants, that is the real core point and that in turn is beneficial to the company as it allows to have the best professionals without biases that should not be taken into consideration.

In the case of the management team I lead, 2/3 of the managers are women, all with different religious and political persuasions, as well as with diverse family and affective realities that reflect the different ways in which the company deals with affective relationships today; in turn, in its teams there are outstanding professionals with different nationalities, sexual preferences, political tendencies or family visions, without this mattering in their evaluations or the opportunities that are generated at work.

This personal vision is supported by the company, which has a policy of inclusion and living diversity, which becomes a reality in concrete acts and in the care of an environment that allows the expression of each person developing their maximum potential.

In your opinion, what are the main trends that are salient in your country currently (these can be legal, political, economy or business-based)?

My opinion is that we are living a true cultural revolution in legislative matters, which has led to an outpouring of laws that seek to break the classic idea that companies have the sole purpose of generating profits for shareholders or owners, this simple idea and apparently so solid in recent years has been challenged by the political class that through the generation of multiple laws, not always as accurate as we would like, have forced especially large companies to obtain what the state has failed to achieve, By way of example, labour laws no longer only seek justice in the workplace but that the company should shield workers from the insecurity that civil society is experiencing today; consumer protection laws no longer only seek to protect the customer in the face of a large company but that it should defend the customer from those who want to defraud him using the company as a means; in sanitary matters, standards are raised while at the same time informality increases, operating in an environment of utter lack of control. All the above, although it can count on the good faith of many and good advertising spots are stifling and damaging formal, responsible and taxpaying businesses, perhaps inadvertently strengthening informality, an activity that in no business generates better conditions for workers and does not contribute to the development of society.