About

Head of legal at Banco de Crédito del Perú, Guillermo Morales heads a team of 81, some 50 of whom are lawyers. Appointed in January 2010, he has since overhauled the systems for the management of judicial cases in which the bank is involved, introducing a computerised system which external legal providers access, as necessary; the specialization by sector of the in-house team’s consultancy services, ensuring that each of the banks business units has a designated contact lawyer; as well as internal feedback systems so as to ensure efficient management of the department’s caseload. In other internal innovations, he has also implemented a rotation system so as to maintain the motivation of his in-house team; and out-sourced routine work, thus allowing the bank, which is two-and-a-half times the size it was five years ago (as measured by share volume), to function efficiently with a legal team of the same size. Morales cites ‘accompanying the bank’s explosive growth with a legal team that has not grown in size’ while maintaining service quality, as among his greatest achievements. He has also played an important role in the (regional) internationalization of the bank, engaging in transactions including the acquisitions of financial institutions Correval in Colombia (2011), and IM Trust in Chile (2012), positioning the bank strongly for the expected growth of MILA; and the acquisitions of Edyificar and, very recently, both Mibanco (the leading players in Peru’s microfinance market) and AIG’s minority holding in the group life insurance business, Pacifico Vida, transactions of particular import to the group strategically. Keenly engaged with how his department’s decisions play out in practical terms, he notes that at times, and ‘in determined industries, such as banking’ external counsel ‘can lack sufficient knowledge of the internal functioning of the bank’ and hence provides ‘legal counsel that is absolutely at odds with how the bank can operate’. Commentators regard him as a protagonist in the sector and speak of ‘an excellent lawyer with complete command of the legal matters related to banking’.