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?

The approach that I apply is prevention. However, as the pandemic showed us, you can never be prepared for everything. Considering that during the 12 years I have been in the company’s legal team, we have had the opportunity to face several periods of instability and crises. In those cases, now, as team leader, I focus on leading my team to be prepared for the unexpected based on our prior experiences.

In that sense, my legal strategy focuses on preventing legal issues, and if not possible, anticipating and planning the legal approach with a business-wide view, ensuring that it aligns with the company’s goals and objectives. The company’s objectives are always the north that we take into consideration to define any legal strategy, and the advice that we provide must not only be legally solid but also functional to the purpose of the company.

What measures has your company taken to embed sustainability practices into its core business operations, and how does the role of the general counsel contribute to driving and ensuring sustainable practices within the company?

Being in the energy business, the transition to cleaner sources is becoming increasingly important. This is something that the company understands and values; therefore, we are currently evaluating alternatives that will allow us to participate actively in the transition. One of the projects currently being evaluated is the production of e-methane in our facilities, which can contribute to achieving carbon neutrality in the gas industry.

As general counsel, I am focused on evaluating the regulatory and legal aspects of a project of this nature, which has never been done before in the country. Thus, we expect it will pose very interesting regulatory challenges.

What emerging technologies do you see as having the most significant impact on the legal profession in the near future, and how do you stay updated on these developments?

Certainly, AI is the technology I see having the most significant impact on the legal profession. In our department, we are open to embracing and learning new and more efficient ways of doing our work, which gives us space to focus on more impactful and growth-oriented tasks.

In that sense, over the past few years, we have worked closely with the company’s IT team to create systems that help simplify and organise day-to-day tasks more efficiently. We are also actively looking to implement more advanced and automatic legal tech solutions.