Focus on the general counsel’s life

In my professional life, I have collaborated with companies that developed highly influential products that impact people’s lives; we have participated in national and foreign companies that developed extractive activities, as well as in infrastructure. This has given me a great sense of commitment and dedication in my role as general counsel.

Since 2020 I have been head of legal and corporate affairs at APM Terminals Callao -a company that operates the most important terminal on the west coast of America for APM Moller-Maersk. In this sense, we are negotiating an addendum to the concession contract that will involve substantial modification in the design of the terminal, increasing the referenced investment from $750m to $1.2bn. We are also working on international arbitration before ICSID for certain claims against the Peruvian State. Both activities are being carried out at the same time as continuous dissemination work with local, international, public, and private stakeholders.

Previously, between 2016 and 2020, I collaborated with Solgas, a leader in the storage, distribution and commercialisation of LPG in Peru in B2B and B2C, participating in the execution of all the actions related to the transfer of said company from Repsol to Abastible, of the COPEC group.

As legal manager and compliance officer, I developed a compliance programme that was executed in all its operations. We also participated in the negotiation of financing for $50m. In 2016, I was part of the Oil & Gas Committee that made a diagnosis of the upstream and downstream as well as made an orderly transfer to the incoming government.

This allowed me to share my experience in the private sector along with the difficulties that the public sector faces. I also worked at Maple Gas, a company that developed the exploration, exploitation, distribution, and commercialisation of hydrocarbons in the Peruvian jungle.

While there, I led the negotiation with the native communities surrounding the operations in the jungle and helped the peaceful redirection of community relations. We also negotiated the renewal of the license and operating contracts of the Pucallpa refinery, which are critical to the activities.

Covid-19 has revolutionised legal activities by highlighting one of the most important features of our support, guidance and leadership function: resilience.

As general counsel, we have had to react with agility and tolerance to the high level of stress that the organization has faced, as well as we have adapted to a complex and unnoticed external environment. This context has resulted in a new regulation that has modified the way we do business, which has motivated us to digitise our legal activities as well as assimilate and apply new labor, commercial, corporate, and litigation regulations, among others.

In addition to Covid-19 we have had to face a changing political environment, with high political instability in the country but with the independence, autonomy and responsibility of an operation that must transcend time during the following decades, bringing benefit and prosperity to foreign trade and all Peruvians.