About

Grupo San José’s director of international legal affairs, Ángela López Molina has had an exciting career path. Shortly after her studies in law and business administration she started working in Garrigues’ corporate team. Three years later she decided to start a Chinese-language summer class, which soon led her to advise the Spanish foreign affairs ministry on Chinese investments, while still working for Garrigues. She subsequently moved to China and worked in a British and a French law firm in Shanghai, advising Spanish, Italian and French companies operating there. In 2011 she returned to Spain and joined the international legal department of Grupo San José, a dynamic and diversified corporate group mainly operating in the fields of construction, energy, concessions and engineering services. ‘Until that moment I had always worked in law firms dealing with counsels who were my clients and then I moved in-house, in a construction company where I was mainly working with engineers, non-legal people, and it was quite challenging as I had to explain all legal technicalities’. Before her arrival at the group, there was no international legal department; it was created by López Molina and from that moment she has taken the lead in the group’s legal issues worldwide. As a young woman, López Molina admits that working in a male-dominated industry has been one of the biggest challenges she has had to face when dealing with countries where gender equality is not as prevalent. Four years after the assumption of her role, she has gained recognition and she is now seen as an equal counterpart in all jurisdictions where she works, which she considers a major achievement. Amid the Spanish economic crisis, construction is one of the sectors that has been most affected. When López Molina joined Grupo San José, the national business accounted for 80% of the total operations, but now it has reversed. ‘Currently the proportion is 45% for national business and 55% for international, which is expected to rise up to 70% in the near future’. The company’s global expansion has increased the workload for the international legal department and López Molina’s international experience has been central to its success.