Ruth Breitenfeld has operated amongst the upper echelons of the energy sector since the early 1990s. Her first in-house role after leaving a successful period as a private practice lawyer was with BP Portugal, where she ultimately spent over 15 years. Breitenfeld first moved to CEPSA in 2006, spending around a decade in the company’s Lisbon office as legal manager before moving to the head office in Madrid to establish and develop the in-house legal department for CEPSA Trading, which manages the trading and bunker activities of the CEPSA Group. She considers the success of this effort as a major career highlight and states that it has allowed her to conceptualise ‘a clear vision for legal work; a clear, strategic vision of how legal fits into the business strategy’.

Building relationships, and cultivating ‘the ability to build bridges’ with internal and external clients is, in her opinion, at the heart of what makes an excellent in-house counsel. As far as Breitenfeld is concerned, the most important characteristic that a GC can have is: ‘Attitude. Introducing a positive, constructive attitude with a clear vision of our role and its interaction with the business and its strategic needs, leads to more effective, powerful and successful businesses’. She is absolutely clear as to qualities an efficient in-house team can add to a business: ‘Independency, transparency and business awareness, along with a positive attitude, bring security and safety into the business and the relationships with its stakeholders. Acting as a solution provider, the legal team is in fact a key business developer’.