About

In keeping with the structure of the Willis Towers Watson global legal team, the Latin American team has a separate reporting line from the businesses it supports, with lawyers in individual countries reporting directly to the US-based head of legal for the Latin American region, rather than to in-country business leaders. Formed in 2014, the small but dynamic and effective Colombian legal team currently provides legal assistance to the business across the Andean region. The team has developed its capability from a limited base, with particular praise received for its operational achievements in implementing protocols and procedures, as well as forging a well-regarded contractual practice. The team has implemented innovative template agreements and guidelines for most of the business’s contractual counterparties allowing business units to negotiate and execute many common agreements with modest need for legal review. This has generated immense time efficiencies and has improved the company’s relationships with clients and suppliers. In general terms, the business units have come to rely on the legal function in order to improve the way they relate to their clients by providing a robust but balanced contractual framework which helps to mitigate risk. The team is also credited for supporting the global legal team in connection with the 2016 merger between Willis and Towers Watson and continues to facilitate post-merger integration work in the region. When asked about key challenges faced by the team, assistant general counsel Fabian Moreno cites the team’s efforts to build trust with the business, so that business units positively seek out legal team advice whenever they are presented with legal issues. ‘Since there was no legal function sitting in country before our arrival, the business units faced delays in getting deals through and this impacted the business’s perception of dealing with legal’, he says. ‘Through our work, we have managed to change this view and now we are actively engaged by the business units from the earliest stages of a project.’