About

As of 2018, a new in-house legal team has been set up at Nutreco Iberia, changing the company’s approach to legal matters completely. It has since moved from being a process driven legal team with low focus on commercial decisions and business, to a very commercial and approachable legal team with focus on adding value. The team has accomplished this by being present in executive committees and business monthly meetings, reviewing the company’s structure, providing external legal support, standardising agreements with clients, suppliers, distributors and managing IP in a more coordinated manner with the business. ‘Nutreco’s in-house team has changed the approach to the legal function in the group of companies to which they render services in less than eight months. Legal is now focused on the business and attending business meetings where they were not present in the past’, says a nominator. The legal team is now actively contributing as part of the management team of the different companies by confirming the group templates and helping the business be more agile and focused. Made up of three lawyers and one administrative support, the legal team is led by legal and compliance director for Iberia, Elisa Gómez de Bonilla González, who encourages the team to see itself as a business partner adding value to the company’s decision processes. She says: ‘We try to understand the reasons behind a decision so we can give the right advice and help the business to take decisions with proper knowledge of risks and opportunities. Mitigating risks where necessary and helping the business to get where it needs to go. Team culture is based on the prior advice. It is better to understand what the objective is and help to get it, rather than solving problems created by wrong or uninformed business decisions’.