Mariano Lor Fernández-Torija started his career in private practice, rendering legal services over six years for a French law office in Madrid and Paris. He then moved on to work in-house within the international legal departments of EUROPAC and Indra Sistemas, where he advised business developers, country managers and contract managers across Latin America, EMEA and the Indian and Asia Pacific regions.

He joined Spanish engineering and technology company Ayesa in 2012 to lead its international legal department, and assumed his current role of head of legal for engineering areas in May 2017. Upon joining Ayesa, Lor quickly visited the main countries the company had active projects in to conduct meetings with the contract managers in order to identify risks and to propose mitigation measures to avoid them. Since then, he has participated in the negotiation of a number of engineering contracts for landmark projects such as Tocumen Panama Airport in Panama, Line 2 Lima Subway in Peru, Purgatorio Dam in Mexico, Line 1 Quito Subway in Ecuador and Riyadh Metro in Saudi Arabia among others.

During over six years with the company, Lor has established a legal function that maintains a close interaction with the internal client, which according to Lor does not shy away from seeking help from the legal department. ‘They expressly ask for my services,’ he says.