Could you tell us a bit about your significant successes in your role?

I have been the legal advisor for Conagra Foods México for 13 years, and the last the years have been particularly challenging in a consumer-centric and dynamic environment.

I am profoundly thankful for the opportunity that was given to me to join this organisation when I was professionally young, and that the company put their trust in me.

Three years ago, I became responsible for the development and compliance with the culture organisation. One of my biggest accomplishments was earning the trust of my advisors, who now consider me a reliable professional and a solid part of the legal team.

Legally speaking, there have been lots of changes of regulations, regarding food safety, labour, and employment that, as a business, we have complied with swiftly and with no disruption to the organisation; we successfully changed the way of solving issues or anticipating potential ones.

In your opinion, what are the qualities and skills needed to form a strong legal team?

From a leadership perspective, it is highly important to build strong relationships with your team, with integrity, confidence, and communication, and also to produce significant results.

I also believe that it is crucial to understand the purpose of the business, in this case to sell food products that consumers love and enjoy. This allows legal counsel to help the commercial and operations areas to achieve the business goal.

Communication is also vital in this role, and it allows the team to share their skills and collaborate as a team.

It is also crucial to identify potential issues and to provide solutions to such risks. We are not obliged to know everything but about a scenario, but we are obliged to attempt to tackle any issue we are faced with.

What is the biggest risk to your industry or organisation and how are you contributing to prepare your organisation for this?

There have been several legal reforms in different areas (tax, labour, and employment, sanitary, publicity, energy, water) which needed to be executed in a short period of time. My role is to communicate such reforms in a timely manner, as well as explain these to multifunctional team members, in order to share our leadership team impacts, risks, and opportunities. I am part of different teams that help execute each regulation and I am proud to guide them from a legal perspective.