About

‘Before I joined the company, the top management had just dismantled the legal department. I was hired to redesign the legal department with new people from scratch’ says Pedro Ferraz. Within three years of assuming his role as legal director at Grupo Trofa Saúde, he has built a strong legal department that since its inception has been ranking first in the internal feedback survey for the company. Grupo Trofa Saúde consists of the fourth biggest health group in Portugal and another group dedicated to the wholesale of apparel and clothing, with operations in Spain, Luxembourg and sales in many European countries. When building the legal department, his first goal was to specialise the in-house lawyers in line with the internal needs. ‘I designed some internal procedures to follow judicial litigations; before I joined there was no strategic definition related to litigation, it was defined by us’ he says. Ferraz established administrative procedures and a documents database that would guarantee the know-how for the current and future in-house lawyers. Ferraz’s advice on strategic matters has been central to the management’s decision making; he was part of a team that was advising on strategic decisions regarding the execution and planning of the business plan and his input has had a substantial impact. Before joining Grupo Trofa Saúde, Ferraz had worked for six years at Uría Menéndez, where he specialised in labour and corporate law.