About

‘A rising star with great potential’, Victor Villafranca Moncallo is currently senior corporate attorney at Grupo Herdez, a Mexican company focused on the alimentary sector with facilities in the US and Chile, as well as across Mexico (not to mention a fishing fleet). Villafranca thus deals with matters ranging across sectors from foodstuffs, real estate and financing, to IT, port and marine matters and energy. Notable external matters in which he has participated include the corporate acquisitions of Aires de Campo (2011), and Grupo Nutrisa (2013), and also the development of two electricity co-generation projects for the group’s companies. On the finance side, he is responsible for the compliance and regulatory matters of the Group’s SOFOM (a Mexican financial entity). Internally he has implemented a money-laundering prevention and detection program and legal audits in relation to trade marks, contracts and regulatory compliance, among other reforms, all with a small team of four lawyers, a systems engineer and a finance specialist. Impassioned by the breadth and diversity of the in-house role he regards it as ‘crucial that in-house lawyers evolve in the face of the constant changes we see on a daily basis and which demand that we apply our knowledge in new ways so as to ensure added value, driving our companies to distinguish themselves through dynamism and innovation’.