About

Senior counsel for Mexico at the world’s third largest premium spirits company Beam Suntory Juan Alberto Rivera Bueno has consistently impressed with his work on important cases. Most recently he has spent almost 18 months setting up the company’s distribution entity in Mexico, which required him and his team to manage multiple tasks concurrently as they had to set up a dormant company and file for permits and licenses to import alcohol. ‘Additionally, we also set up a new payroll company and negotiated all kinds of agreements for setting up two new offices in Mexico and Guadalajara. All the above within a strict timeline as our distribution agreement was set to expire early than anticipated’. Additionally; he has advised on Agave and Tequila purchase transactions worth several million dollars and enabling his employer to secure the company’s product stock by defending the company against breach of agreement claims from Agave sellers in the region. Rivera has also made a positive impression with his organisational achievements, namely transforming the way files are kept so they are available at any time and also being able to overview the hundreds of Agave-related agreements that the company execute each year ‘This helps us to provide effective service even when not physically at the same location of our internal clients’, he explains. ‘We have also changed the way we prioritise and process work for all areas of the company; we try to always assess the real need of what we are being asked to do so we have a clear idea of how helping someone before another might impact the business’. During his time at his former employer, the bakery ingredients business AB Mauri, Rivera received acclaim for his contribution to the construction of one of the most modern yeast plants in the world. He says: ‘I could manage agreements and legal relationships with more than 50 vendors and were part of the team that was able to finish the project in record time. This complex project included the installation of electrical infrastructure that was set up in a way that could be used in the future by the surrounding communities’. Rivera worked at law firms in Mexico City between 2006 and 2012 and also had in-house spells at Monsanto 2004 to 2006) and YUM! (2002 to 2004). He was executive vice president of FISAC and NGO that works against abuse of alcohol between 2015 and 2016 and sat as first vice president of the National Tequila Chamber from 2015 to early 2018. He currently sits on the board of both the Tequila Chamber and the Tequila Regulatory Council where he works closely with other stakeholders defending the industry’s interests on various fronts including the renegotiation of NAFTA where he has been a member of the Mexican Stakeholders’ group.