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

I have known Finsa for almost eight years now since I was working as one of their external counsel. It has been an exciting challenge to move in-house and become the legal director for all transactional matters in the organisation. I believe that my prior experience in private practice has allowed me to get involved in even more complex real estate transactions that require creative legal structured solutions, and now with a strong business orientation as a priority.

Since starting this new role, I have been focusing on developing my team, as well as improving the organisation and internal processes to help our internal business development team to meet current demands in the industry, for example, by shortening times of drafting, review, and negotiation of transactions to achieve the company’s goals.

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

I would focus mostly on three main qualities: (i) reliability, (ii) willingness to keep learning, and (iii) flexibility. Reliability is essential in a team because there must be trust among members to achieve success. Having team members to which you can delegate work, knowing that it will get done, allows you to invest more time in more important matters inside the organisation. The willingness to keep learning is also essential. This reflects that the team strives to keep developing and growing inside the organisation while becoming more adept in such a process, which benefits both the leader of the team and the company. A team member that lacks such curiosity or hunger eventually becomes a burden to the other members and the organisation itself. Finally, flexibility rounds up a good quality member. A valuable team member shall always be ready to go the extra mile when needed. It is essential to know that when things get complicated and require extra effort, you will have people beside you to support you when needed.

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

A current concern in the real estate industry is the price volatility of raw materials for construction. This has resulted in the need to adjust our internal processes to shorten the time between the final agreed quotation for the works and the formalisation of the corresponding agreement to begin careers before any increase takes place that could impact the fixed agreed prices or work schedule.

We have been addressing this problem in many ways, including by (i) anticipating all client requirements since day 1 (for example, gathering documentation for the due diligence process) and (ii) adjusting the structure and language of the organisation’s agreement templates to be more business-friendly, but without compromising legal protection for the business.