About

Gustavo Sáchica joined MetLife Colombia Seguros de Vida (MetLife) in November 2015 and has since led the legal team with his composure, experience and emphasis on legal education. He has made innovative changes and optimised the functioning of the department, as well as supervised the provision of expert advice. When he joined he optimised the structure of the department, putting together a team of six with the budget that originally was set for a team of four with external counsels working in-house maximising efficiency. He has also implemented a very popular legal monthly newsletter for the whole company. The publication aims to provide relevant legal information, as he says, ‘with a human voice or in simple terminology’ that could be easily understood by non-lawyers. Also in terms of education, he implemented a monthly legal session for non-lawyers called the ‘legal school for non- lawyers’, in order to provide training on any legal matter that could be needed by any area of the company in simple language. The scheme has received great feedback from the stakeholders as innovative for legal department and business division relations. Similarly, Sáchica are putting together a repository of concepts to allow any associate of the company to consult all the legal concepts that the legal department has provided to any area in the past. He explains, ‘the concepts are chosen based on similar questions that we have received by our internal clients. So as we have received the same questions we can be more efficient in our answers to our internal customers by letting our customers consult our repository before sending us a formal request’. Sáchica has also led on some of MetLife’s biggest transactions such as one deal worth US$7m with an expected return over 10 years of US$100m. He is also involved in the firm’s litigation, particularly with complex cases of fraud related to insurance, in which bogus claims are presented seeking to defraud the firm. Last year, he was appointed to participate in a global career development project, chosen by senior leadership to provide ideas on some of the company’s biggest internal strategy dilemmas, it was a global opportunity where Sáchica made a major impact. His nominators are full of praise for Sáchica’s contribution to MetLife: ‘Sáchica has been head of legal in MetLife since its early stages of growth in Colombia. He has managed to navigate complicated regulatory issues related to the introduction of new insurance products to the country in a successful manner, whilst keeping a fraud prone environment under control’. And another said, ‘Sáchica leads a legal department that has developed a reputation for excellence and efficiency within the insurance industry. He acts as a strategic partner to the business having an input to all key decisions made by the company. Additionally, he has introduced several initiatives designed to develop a culture of compliance within the company’.