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 organization’s resilience?   

Planification and prioritisation are key to resolving any crisis; the ability to anticipate and to resolve with a strategy is paramount. At Avaya, we have been working to align the processes and legal requirements for the entire region and working to set horizontal standards to optimize procedures and generally understand the needs of all BU across the region. To achieve this, we created a regional guideline that sets the process and requirements in efforts to optimise the time and efforts supporting all the BU within the company. In addition to this standardisation strategy, we consider that a proper and continue alignment with the business strategy and objectives is key to solve any potential crisis, thus, we work hand in hand and daily to understand their needs and pains to support them in the best way possible. To comply and successfully attain this objective, we are always working on a continuous risk assessment and management of strategic policies that could create a safer legal environment. We are also focused on developing contingency plans that address the prioritised risks and strengthen compliance programs.  Also, technology and innovation are key to changing our roles within the company and come very handy when a crisis arises. The proper use of AI to support the business as a legal tool is now essential to our daily task and procedures; we must understand that AI is here to stay, and so we are better off embracing it to assist the business at all times, particularly in critical times. 

In summary, legal managers must understand that our role is not static but always on the move. A corporate lawyer’s ability to think creatively and stay resilient allows them to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, ensuring the company’s legal strategies are both effective and flexible. In times of crisis, a corporate lawyer’s creativity is crucial for developing innovative solutions that can navigate complex legal challenges and protect the company’s interests.  

What are the main cases or transactions you have been involved in recently?   

We have recently closed a strategic deal in Colombia with one of the most important telcos companies in Colombia, this deal is not only significant in numbers for the region but also involves the positing of our most recent cloud product in Avaya, Avaya Experience Platform (AXP), on a very large scale. We have also been adapting our data privacy policies to current local legal changes and new requirements.  

What emerging technologies do you see as having the most significant impact on the legal profession soon, and how do you stay updated on these developments?   

AI definitively, as mentioned before, is here to stay and it clearly impacts the legal profession and the way we see and understand our role as in-house lawyers and legal managers. Understanding and implementing AI tools into our day-to-day tasks is key to efficient workstreams and to optimize the way we support our internal and external customers. The only way to stay updated in these developments is to constantly train and study AI tools and use cases. If legal managers do not use and interiorize AI, we are on verge of extinction.