About

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) is multinational Spanish banking group with a global revenue of approximately €24bn in 2015. BBVA has a widespread presence in South American countries through a number of subsidiaries, and Colombia is no exception. The country’s legal team is led by Ulises Canosa Suárez, general secretary, executive and legal affairs vice president. There are a total of 80 in-house lawyers across the Colombian operations: 44 in the bank, 24 in compliance, seven in Fiduciaria and five supporting the insurance company. Canosa Suárez was listed in the 2016 GC Powerlist as one of best in-house lawyers in the country, and the quality of the team is equally as high. Singled out for individual mention Canosa Suárez highlights ‘four senior lawyers – Myriam Cala, William Rincón, Nestor Prieto and Pedro Diaz – who all have more than 20 years of experience in the financial industry’. Over the last two years BBVA has been undergoing significant digital transformation, akin with many of its competitors in the financial sector. Digital banking and digitisation of working practices have changed the way that the legal team operates. To align with this change Canosa Suárez has moved the team towards ‘flexible working hours and teleworking’ in order to ‘improve the relationships and working conditions of the team members’. As the legal team becomes more flexible and dynamic, Canosa Suárez has ensured that advice is still high quality and commercially aligned to business needs. ‘We have made an effort to have a legal team that internal clients find approachable, and that can give simple, timely and practical answers to every day legal issues and questions by utilising different tools, such as a centralised telephone line for attention, a legal Q&A website and Google apps that help us organise and manage the constant influx of information’, he says. ‘Constant meetings, an open door policy and a supportive environment which allows the members of our team to freely discuss their ideas, solve their questions and learn from each other’, help to create a collaborative, service-based atmosphere that make the BBVA Colombia legal team one of the best in its class.