About

‘Without a doubt, one of the most experienced, innovative and hard-working general counsels in the telecoms industry in Mexico’, Roberto Andrade Martínez has been at Telefónica Moviles for over a decade, initially as governmental and corporate affairs sub-director and today as legal director. During his tenure he has implemented an overhaul of the legal department’s systems and built a team of 14 specialised lawyers, plus a further eight other specialist professionals. A ‘hands on counsel who is very practical in his approach to problems’, commentators note his ‘great leadership skills’, and Andrade himself regards the development of the team as one of his most significant achievements. He also has a notable track record on the transactional front, not least the merger of Mobil Oil and Exxon in 1999, when he was in house at Mobil Oil; or more recently, in his current post, an MXN$8000m sale-and-leaseback of telecom towers; the development of a joint venture to exploit the potential of the country’s fibre optic network; and in 2013, the negotiation of virtual mobile operating licenses with partners including Virgin and Coppell. Indeed, other in-house counsel credit him with having ‘arranged and closed transactions for Telefónica that are ground-breaking, demanding and innovative’ and that have ‘represented hugely important benefits’ for the company. The ongoing challenge, he notes, is that of providing useful business solutions within a highly changeable and highly regulated telecoms market that is also deeply competitive.