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 organiation’s resilience?

Exogenous factors to the progress of a company often have unpredictable impacts that are difficult to measure due to their effects in various areas (operational, commercial, logistical, and legal) and the time in which they occur. However, while periods of instability and crisis present challenges, they also certainly bring opportunities. Therefore, the way these should be faced is through flexibility and versatility in the face of a sea of uncertainties and, there is no doubt, the in-house lawyer must accompany these moments not only with a constant evaluation of the risks that businesses face, but also with a spirit of collaboration and adaptation in order to achieve or even exceed the expected results in the business. Lawyers cannot remain in dogma but must focus on action through predictive and, above all, preventive activity. As a Darwin lawyer would say: “the [companies] that survive are not the strongest, but those that, together with their lawyers, adapt best to change” and we lawyers must have a critical impact on the way we address these situations.

How do you prioritise diversity and inclusion within your legal department, and what initiatives have you implemented to foster a more inclusive and equitable work environment?

In my professional practice I have always been fortunate to participate in legal areas committed to inclusion and diversity. Although I have always appreciated the richness of differences and the contrast of knowledge and visions, I have also been reflective of the fact that all individuals have perceptions, prejudices and paradigms and that only when we are aware of the universe of cultures, sexes, religions, races, and preferences we can really take a humble and inclusive attitude and thus overcome our individual and collective defects. Therefore, I think that inclusion is the attitude towards life of being able to appreciate the differences in people and obtain the best from them for personal growth. And since attitudes and behaviours are transformative, I have always encouraged the open expression of ideas and opinions, fostering a space for critical thinking, without considering hierarchical structures, titles, or positions in companies. There is no space more open to diversity and inclusion in the world of differences and ideas than the practice of law.