What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Trane Technologies legal has been involved in the following cases. First, the industrial-climate separation project under ‘Reverse Morris Trust’ – in March 2020, Trane Technologies, formerly known as Ingersoll-Rand, completed its Reverse Morris Trust transaction with Gardner Denver Holdings, under which the Industrial segment of the former Ingersoll-Rand was separated and combined with Gardner Denver. Derived from such operation, the climate segment now operates as Trane Technologies and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the new ticker symbol “TT.” As an associate general counsel for Latin America, I coordinated the legal work related to this separation throughout 10 subsidiaries in 8 countries under very tight deadlines. Tasks included legal name changes of legal entities and their shareholders, all registrations and filings before all applicable authorities, and amendments to all current agreements. This work involved precise coordination with external counsel in multiple jurisdictions with the administration of each entity and with colleagues around the globe. Second, Panama Hub legal leadership – the Panama Hub is Trane Technologies’ Latin America trading hub and a fundamental part of its Enterprise Trade Platform Model (ETPM), which establishes an enterprise-wide trading network utilising regional trading hubs which standardise and optimise: (i) order flow; (ii) financial flows; (iii) physical flows; (iv) information flows; (v) reason for action; (vi) ease of doing business; (vii) simplify existing trading model; (viii) leverage SMART (Oracle plus other existing software applications).

What will be the main focus for the company in the next 12 months and how do you intend to assist with this?

The main focus of the Latin America legal function will be to support the evolving implementation and legal management of the Panama Hub and its interaction with the business and subsidiaries across the region. This will demand multimillion-dollar investments and careful planning from commercial, logistics, financial, tax, and legal perspectives.

If you had to give advice to an aspiring in-house lawyer or general counsel, what would it be and why?

The work of in-house counsel is quite different from that of attorneys in a law firm. Having experienced both roles, the advice that I would like to give to aspiring in-house counsel is to develop your commercial awareness and empathy. The function of in-house counsel is challenging as it is required to navigate complicated legal and policy frameworks. This requires in-house lawyers to open their minds and develop skills in different areas such as sales or business.