What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Most recently, our legal team was active, as a private equity firm came in and acquired a majority interest in our company, Wizeline, and then, the previous majority owner, also a private equity firm, stayed in partially. So, I would say that structuring that transaction was challenging for us, just like those situations always are. But I’m proud of the way the entire team got together and did a great job, not only for the company as a whole, but also investors were really happy with the results. Also, the way management and, specially, option holders at Wizeline were represented was particularly fulfilling, as it has always been very important, and even part of our company’s founder, Bismarck Lepe’s vision for Wizeline. In all, I am very proud of my team, because we had to deal with a very difficult transaction, and even harder to implement.

What skills do you think that a corporate legal team today needs to succeed, as you know, in house counsel for a company?

It is interesting to think about that because as I have sat on the advisory board of the University of Miami law school for a LLM programme, it struck me that there were no classes around how to negotiate digital transformation services agreements, which nowadays, as a legal team, we do all the time. Lawyers really need to know how to negotiate these deals, because every company today needs to become a technologically developed company to thrive. I also think that every company is now looking at the way they are addressing the digital world and the digital marketplace, especially coming out of a very long and challenging pandemic. As a result, I started teaching a short course on digital transformation and business and legal considerations for lawyers, so that when lawyers get out of school, they have an academic basis on how to deal with these sorts of issues. Taken together, having a digital mindset is essential when being part of a legal team.

As a Florida-based in-house lawyer, how has the relationship between the state, Latin America, and the Caribbean influenced your company’s practises in recent years?

In my opinion, there’s no better market than Florida when you want to address the Latin American market. Lawyers have an incredible pool of talent here. People who are first generation immigrants and not only are knowledgeable of their native country’s jurisdiction, but can also negotiate, draft and write in brilliant English, and grasp our legislations. In all, the market is so vibrant and rich in talent, from where I will, certainly, continue to hire.