Team size: Four

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

Just before the pandemic I decided to take one of my most important challenges in my professional career. I left my comfort zone and moved to Honduras accepting the challenge to lead the legal team based in Latin America and Bangladesh. My mission was to raise the bar of legal work and push the working experience to the next level, focusing on having a business counsel orientation, feeling the ownership of the company’s culture and working hard improving the soft skills needed to transform the vision of the legal department. The objective was clear: we needed to change the DNA of the legal work and become a more dynamic, empathic and modern team that represents one of the back bones of the structure of any company.

Throughout the pandemic, the legal team worked hard to highlight the adaptability, empathy and resilience skills needed to achieve the goals and protect the company. When we came out the end of this, the team was more integrated, more dynamic and more focused on leading by the example to show the importance of having a strong legal business team in a company.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most?

The pandemic was a period when we needed, more than ever, to think outside of the box and embrace technology, in order to maintain the same presence in a company, to keep running the legal department at the highest possible standard and to anticipate and mitigate all the risks associated to the running business.

Artificial Intelligence is revolutionary, and will eventually alter all of our work. Being a lawyer in this era obliges us to have faster reflexes and make quick decisions on how to implement such technology into the legal department. In any case, for the next few years a lawyer cannot be distanced from the technological advancements, because both are so connected; in the near future, a technological knowledge will be a requirement for any lawyer.

What is a cause, business related or otherwise, that you care about, and why?

In my opinion, the way we perceive business, market behaviour, and product development is undergoing rapid change. I am deeply interested in gaining a better understanding of all the components and processes that drive a business and product forward.

This growing appetite for knowledge and sensitivity in our daily lives is urging industries to reconsider their practices, making them more suitable, sustainable, and eco-friendly, benefiting both the environment and communities.

For these reasons, I strongly believe that all companies should ensure that their business practices align with the new consumer expectations. An important factor in achieving this is through the implementation of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) programs, human rights policies, and robust compliance systems. These measures are essential for creating products that meet consumer demands while adhering to clean manufacturing processes and promoting sustainable business practices that leave a smaller footprint on our planet.