Team size:  20 

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?   

Instability is almost always present, either by means of the recent pandemia, by financial crisis somewhere in the world, because of market lumps, or many other causes so the first thing that needs to be done is to have a comprehensive understanding of the business strategy as well as the core business of the company so we do not lose sight of what we are looking for. 

Then, as long as we will never have “all the information” needed to make decisions, we segregate the problem into different topics, such as compliance, financial, regulations, stakeholder’s interests and so on in order to prioritise them and identify what will be tackled first and how our decisions and actions will impact on each of those identified areas so we can minimise the damage and improve the outcome of our service. In my little over 30 years in the company we have crossed many crises, and we are “still standing” so that gives us confidence that the Legal Team has done its job and will continue providing excellent service in the future. 

What are the main cases or transactions you have been involved in recently?   

We were working on a strategic sale of a Portfolio that took us several months and, at the end, the deal did not come through due to some authorisations that were not granted by the Authorities to the purchaser and all was placed “on hold” but the due date and the pressure was enormous but on our end, the legal team was ready to finalise the transaction.  

Also, we worked the re financing of a retail portfolio that was challenging due to the short period on which the transaction needed to be completed and, once again, we were able to make it on time. 

How can general counsel foster a corporate culture that supports ESG principles and compliance across all levels of the organisation?   

ESG is not a trend, it is here to stay, and it is very much needed. ESG is really necessary to make sustainable the world we live in, as well as the businesses that operate around the globe; huge differences exist among the countries but in many cases, the ones that are supposed to be at the top, are the ones that cause the major damage to the environment and consequently, do not make a big impact on social and also, even when it might look they have a strong corporate governance, it is not really one that fulfil such role. 

In the legal department, we have a lot of tools that can help spread the ESG culture, professional knowledge, “corporate capital”, team work with different areas of the company, understanding the turbulent waters of the C-suite and many others that can be put at work in order to keep a constant pace, regardless slow or fast, but constant pace towards an ESG culture within the organisation. 

How do you manage and motivate your legal team to ensure high performance and professional growth?  

First of all, respect, for the individual, for their knowledge, for their work and for their beliefs; when you give trust and confidence to your co-workers and staff, you “raise the bar” to a mutual commitment so with that in mind, I like to use what I call “the moral card” with which I invite the members of the team to do better every day, the commitment has to be with one self and then spread to the rest of the working group and the company. 

We try to share progress of the different “shared knowledge” meetings so we all can have the insight of a colleague on a deal being handled by him/her and then discuss different points of view to compare approaches on the same matter. Also, I encourage the team to be part of one of the Lawyers Associations (Colegios de Abogados) to remain current in the changes that occur constantly in the Law field, even better if they complete the hours needed to obtain the association’s certification.