About

With more than two decades in-house experience at Santander Group, José de Reina Amarillas has been involved in some of the bank’s most significant transactions. Since joining Santander’s in-house team in 1994, he has undertaken a number of senior roles and in 2012 he assumed his current position as the head of retail and commercial banking and custody legal, where he leads a team of seven lawyers. During his long tenure at Santander he has created, formed and developed new legal teams and reshaped the existing ones; he has defined the internal legal assessment function, policies and contractual models for the areas he has supervised. In cooperation with other divisions, de Reina Amarillas has contributed greatly to the development and implementation of the group legal and operational risk/control and mitigation policies. ‘I give legal support and advice to different corporate areas involved in regulatory initiatives with high and cross-jurisdictional impact for the businesses within the group such as public policy, business and regulatory projects’ he comments. He admits that adapting to the changes within the organisation, culture, strategy and regulatory environment, along with the new responsibilities resulting from the different roles he has assumed, was the biggest challenge he has faced throughout his in-house career. However, he contends that this allowed him to gain wide knowledge of the organisation and different businesses, which he considers as the highlight of his career.