About

Vodafone, one of the three major mobile phone network providers in Portugal, had strong growth in 2016, recently confirming 2.2% year-on-year service revenue improvements for Q3 2016 totaling €227m. The Vodafone Portugal legal team, headed by Madalena Sutcliffe, is currently 12-strong and looking to consolidate on its excellent record of supporting the company’s operations by hiring further members in the near future. The team is very keen ‘to promote self-service behaviour’, explains Sutcliffe, who goes on to describe how the team has made significant innovations in terms of knowledge-sharing and a database where ‘official documents sent and received by the company are held in-house’. The team’s setup is also innovative in its structure, including the presence of a dedicated economist within their ranks – account financial and business analyst André Gomes – whose expertise has proved invaluable in cost modelling for the team and many other areas. The team has developed to the extent that it now has a major role to play in revenue generation for the company. Work on court cases disputing illegal awards of public contracts which were successfully recovered to Vodafone, VAT recovery and other initiatives, have all helped gain or save money for the company. When this is coupled with cost reductions garnered through navigation of regulations and administrative costs, there is a significant tangible financial benefit added to the bottom line of the company by the legal team. The team has also been involved in ‘major M&A projects’ and has conducted extensive work on an initiative to provide a standard short summary contract form to all consumer contracts, anticipating the impact of the “EU 2020” job and growth initiative. The team possesses a great depth of talent within its ranks, including Ana Monteiro Fernandes who represents the company in corporate contract court cases and deals with public tenders, and Margarida Vilão who has an important role to play in law enforcement by being available 24/7 to the judicial authorities. The team is constantly looking to improve its economy, with Sutcliffe explaining that this has forced them to ‘become more efficient’ throughout their operations, their innovation and tangible effect on the company’s operations stand them out as excellent business partners for Vodafone.