About

Once considered among the top three Argentine lawyers under 45 by Argentine (digital) newspaper Infobae, and the only ‘in-house’ likely to be a future leader in the legal field, Citibank’s general counsel in Argentina, Guillermo Ucha has more than lived up to his billing. Formerly a partner at Estudio Beccar Varela, he left the firm to join Citibank in 2004 and has been there ever since, gradually establishing himself as ‘an undoubted reference point in the banking industry’. As one Uruguayan lawyer who has known him for years notes: ‘he is not only a great human being but also a great lawyer with a fine balance between the legal and the commercial, which is to say, he has the business acumen necessary to be in house in a company such as a bank, Citi in particular, a role that is all the more difficult in a jurisdiction such as Argentina’. Convinced, even from early in his in-house career that he’d become ‘a better lawyer than prior to joining the bank’, he is also a firm believer that in-house lawyers should ‘take decisions on an on-going basis and stick with them’. An Argentine peer states simply: ‘he’s the best banking lawyer working in house by far, he’s in another league. Why is he so good? Well, he’s very sophisticated in his grasp of matters, has a very international perspective but is also very calm; he looks at the angles, takes a decision and executes it. Great delivery, but he also knows when to stop and reflect. There’s no one comparable, really: he could be a law firm partner in any sophisticated jurisdiction’.