Luis Elías started his career at law firm Garrigues in Madrid, first moving in-house in 1994 as head legal counsel for Europe at Sogo Corporation, subsequently progressing through positions at companies including Duro Felguera and Sara Lee Group.

Elías, who has been performing notable work for several years, also had a position as a member of the board of directors of Caixa Bank between the years of 1998 and 2003, before beginning at Spanish media business Planeta Group in 2006. As the company’s current general counsel, Elías describes his main responsibilities as ‘legal, tax, internal audit, author’s rights, finance, supply chain and HR’ and he has worked on a number of activities spanning ‘governance, M&A, international joint ventures, IP rights and contractual matters’. Owing to this wide range of responsibilities and the variety of matters he encounters, Elías has imposed a number of developments to the internal legal department to help improve the capability and depth of its work.

In becoming ‘the most demanded and appreciated’ department in the group, Elías and his team ‘manage a lot of information from different business units and hence are able to advise different managers to fulfil their task with the knowledge of other executives from other business units’. Elías and his team created a backup system for all relevant document storage, explaining its function as being akin to both ‘a library and an IT system [that] works together online’. He adds: ‘Our archive system has been used by all the departments of the corporation. It has been a great contribution. We also created the first team to fight against piracy on books and movies in Spain. We are the private entity that presented more “take down notices” to Google in Spain [than any other] in the last six years. We have cooperated with the Ministry of Education in reducing piracy and [have] advised in different laws to protect IP rights in Spain and the EU’. When speaking to his career highlights, Elías notes a mixture of professional recognition as well as results in high-profile acquisitions. Regarding the latter, Elías oversaw deals in France and Colombia working on two M&A projects worth €1.4bn – a time where he ‘learned a lot about how to conduct and close relevant deals and how to create value on the acquired companies’.

His achievements in managing a team are also a point of pride for him, and he claims that a strategy based on ‘building trust’ and collaboration between business units, corporate teams and business partners has borne fruit. Lastly, Elías’ promotion to a position as a director in Planeta Group is a particular career highlight. Of this recognition he states: ‘To be a member of the board is a different experience and an increase of responsibility. When you are counsel or secretary of the board you have to manage the minutes, the agenda, the organisation of the board but once you are a board member you feel the responsibility of the challenge and all your decisions will involve. You become more responsible and open to new learnings since you need them for your decision making process’.