First, can you please give us an idea of the sort of work your team has done recently?

Recently our team has focused on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, particularly we’ve launched a project called “Better Call Us Diversity” aimed at fostering DEI values across law firms. This is a project we created along with the legal team from Brazil and the legal vice president who is based in Miami.

What do you think are the biggest risks facing your industry at the moment and how are you preparing your company and team to face these risks?

Transparency and corruption are still an important issue for the Healthcare sector. Despite the efforts of the current administration to fight corruption, we still struggle to compete in an environment where not everyone plays under the same rules.

As Medtronic is fundamentally a compliance-driven company, we’ve implemented several actions to face these risks. We’ve implemented a go-direct strategy to be less dependent on distributor intermediaries and have reinforced our compliance function by dedicating local resources to supervise the operation. We’ve also implemented an antibribery system and obtained the ISO-37001 international certification.

Does the team use any “legal tech” products, and do you find these to be a helpful management device?

Firstly, we use Smartsheet software for everything. The Latin American legal team has developed a platform called “Legal Mas Cerca” (Closer to Legal) using this software. Through this platform our internal clients are able to submit all type of legal support from drafting and review of contracts to the issuance of powers of attorney and legal opinions.

The platform also allows us to monitor our time of response and serves as a repository for legal documentation.

We also use Smartsheet to keep track of our litigation cases and the expenditure on legal services.