GC Powerlist Mexico 2018

MIRA is the world’s largest infrastructure asset manager with growing portfolios in real estate, agriculture and energy. Only a year after joining MIRA’s Mexico office in 2015, US-trained lawyer Roman Ajzen assumed the role of legal director of MMIF and FIBRA Macquarie. Since then, he has continued to work on a number of important projects across the organisation. This not only includes the acquisition and successful construction of a greenfield solar PV plant – one of the first in Mexico – but also seamlessly bringing certain key corporate secretarial and compliance functions in-house. In addition, he has overseen the implementation of a comprehensive anti-corruption due diligence process for high-risk transactions: ‘The process is based on international best practices and incorporates multi-disciplinary inputs such as forensic accounting, on-the-ground enhanced due diligence and local and international legal advisors to provide actionable advice on applicable risks and potential mitigants. This information is critical to the decision to proceed with a transaction and the type of contractual protections included in the transaction documents and post-closing actions taken to mitigate risk further’, he explains. Describing his role, Ajzen says: ‘The in-house legal role at MIRA is quite broad and includes transaction oversight, general corporate work, regulatory and compliance responsibilities. The broad scope implies that lawyers moving from private practice necessarily must expand their practice and develop new skills’. For MMIF, Macquarie Group’s first managed fund in Latin America, Ajzen assisted on the disposal of its interests in a renewable energy project which ‘was extraordinarily complex and required expertise across M&A, project finance and general corporate work in order to execute successfully’. For FIBRA Macquarie – a real estate investment trust targeting industrial and commercial real estate opportunities in Mexico – Ajzen helped refinance its entire balance sheet, representing US$1.1bn of debt across six credit facilities. He also worked on approximately US$80m of M&A activity in the last few years and led the refresh of its corporate governance policies. Demonstrating his qualities, one nominator said of Ajzen that he ‘is a very technical and pragmatic lawyer. He is a US lawyer working in Mexico so he brings great experience into the Mexican market and since he’s Mexican, he also knows his way in the Mexican legal market. He is just great’. Before MIRA, Ajzen spent over seven years in the New York office of law firm Davis Polk.

Industrias Peñoles, the world leader in silver production, is also the second largest Mexican mining company and the first Mexican producer of gold, zinc and lead. Industrias Peñoles currently has active mines in Mexico and some proposed projects in South America. Leading its Mexico legal team is Gustavo Alarcon, a lawyer with more than 15 years’ experience in prestigious Mexican and US law firms and legal departments of Fortune 500 corporations. He currently manages a team of 13 lawyers as the deputy general counsel for Industrias Peñoles in charge of the corporate M&A, mining, infrastructure and legal compliance functions. In his role Alarcon provides practical business approach to transactional work, simplifying deals and working to create value for clients, making them aware of the risks and alternatives available to them. He is recognised for consistently adding value to the business, with legal and tactical advice, always aware of the values and drivers of clients. Over the years, he has managed to stay abreast of challenges that have consequently helped him learn to become a better lawyer and leader. ‘I have learned a lot from my first days in-house by understanding the roles of the different stakeholders and managing a team of young lawyers. Constant learning and adaptation are paramount for an in-house role, as well as an incorruptible moral’, he says. Alarcon has created more efficient processes within Industrias Peñoles, starting with changing the compliance culture and considerably cutting costs to change the way the legal and compliance functions are perceived internally.

General counsel and compliance officer at Nestlé Mexico, Wendy Alcala, provides full legal support to the company’s business lines in the country which include the manufacturing of dry, condensed, and evaporated dairy products. Having joined the company’s Mexico City office as a lawyer in 1998, Alcala has quickly moved through the ranks, impressing in various positions across Mexico, Spain and Switzerland. Her previous roles at Nestlé have included commercial counsel for Latin America (2003-2009), senior commercial counsel Europe (2009-2012) and senior legal counsel for M&As and business development (2009-2012). Besides overseeing the legal and compliance function of Nestlé’s Mexican operation, Alcala is an active speaker on compliance related matters particularly on aspects related to anticorruption, personal data, human rights and cyber security. She has also worked alongside a number of public offices and authorities on developing compliance training programmes, and has lectured at international conferences, seminars and graduate legal programmes.

Fomento Económico Mexicano S.A.B de C.V, (FEMSA) is the largest franchise bottler of Coca-Cola products in the world by volume and also operates the largest convenience store chain in Mexico. Serving as its director of legal affairs and secretary of the board of directors, Carlos Eduardo Aldrete Ancir has been a strong driving force for the company contributing effectively to its success and growth since joining in 1996. His 22 years at the company ensure he has an approach that is fully aligned to the business’ operations. As part of its board of directors, Aldrete is responsible for determining corporate strategy as well as defining and overseeing the implementation of FEMA’s vision and values. His extensive portfolio incorporates international commercial, financial transactions, debt issuance, corporate restructurings, and M&As. Most recently, Aldrete was credited for overseeing the sale FEMSA’s 5.24% stake in HEINEKEN for €2.5bn in 2017. He holds a Master’s degree in comparative law from the University of Illinois and Bachelor’s degree in law from Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon.

Viviana Alvarado Balderas has over a decade’s experience with Sura Mexico (formerly ING México), being made legal and compliance director in late 2009, prior to which she was senior legal counsel from mid-2003 onwards. She started her in-house career at ING Grupo Financiero, being in charge of corporate matters, negotiating credit facilities and providing advice on financial markets. During her years at ING, she gained experience in a number of financial industry businesses including banking, pensions and insurance. In early 2016, she was afforded executive responsibilities as her role expanded to that of legal and compliance executive director. On assuming these new duties, Alvarado says, ‘becoming part of the management committee has been a career highlight’. Alvarado also points to her M&A work as something she is particularly proud of. Alvarado has participated in several M&A transactions and corporate restructuring projects, including the acquisition of Santander’s pension business in Mexico in 2007, the sale of ING’s insurance in Mexico to AXA in 2008 and the ING’s sale of its original asset management business to Sura in 2012 which she describes as having had a huge impact on her development. She has also had a major effect on the development of the wider legal function at Sura Asset Management, as she explains: ‘I have constituted a team with strong negotiation and technical skills to support the business and investments teams on a day-to-day basis. My team has continuous training in Mexico and abroad, and is known in the market for the professionalism and capabilities of its members’. Alvarado and her team have been responsible for a number of company projects that have had a significant positive impact on its fortunes, becoming key partners with the business. Among others, in 2014 the team participated in the acquisition of a life insurance company. And, on Sura Asset Management’s issue of international bonds in 2017. In addition to her legal role, Alvarado is responsible of anti-money laundering, anti-bribery and compliance matters. She currently serves as secretary of the board. Her career highlights include effective implementation of regulatory changes, and providing legal support to strategic and business innovation projects.

Known throughout the country, Liverpool is a retailer which operates the largest chain of department stores in Mexico. As chief legal officer for this distinguished brand, Norberto Aranzábal has been involved in a number of recent significant developments and initiatives aimed at further expanding the company’s presence. In 2017 alone, he advised on Liverpool’s planned acquisition of Chilean retailer Ripley and the opening of 11 new warehouses including seven in France. He also oversaw the acquisition of 122 warehouses belonging to the clothing store chain Suburbia, as well as the intellectual property and other goods and rights related to that division. Having spent over 36 years at Liverpool, Aranzábal’s technical legal expertise and understanding of the business have been vital for the continually growing company.

Having spent over 24 years at one of the most important real estate companies in Mexico, Grupo FRISA, Armando Ascencio Pérez has an almost unrivalled understanding of the company’s operations as evinced in his dual role of corporate CEO and general counsel. He was appointed in the position in 2014, after serving in the capacity of chief legal counsel and over two decades of closing deals in the company. On the achievements he has overseen in 2017, Ascencio recalls, ‘we placed Mex$1bn debt on the stock exchange market, in a transaction that involved 19 locations and almost 400 lease agreements, to refinance a previous debt and fund the outstanding payments for the construction of Mundo E’s expansion. We [also] refinanced a loan with a syndicated group of financial institutions for the amount of Mex$4.5bn’. He adds the following regarding an exciting development the whole company is currently working on: ‘Starting December 2016 and through to mid-2018, we are working on a complete change of our business processes supported by a technological platform, implementing an all-cloud based solution with Oracle, that will allow us to increase the efficiency of our operations and will be a game changer within the industry, becoming the largest real estate cloud-based project for Oracle within Latin America’.

In Latin America, Bank of America Merrill Lynch offers a full range of financial products and services to corporations, institutions and governments. Since 2011, Alejandro E. Athié has been the Mexico general counsel for Bank of America Merrill Lynch and in 2014 added the responsibility for the Southern Cone countries (Chile and Argentina). Athié has introduced diverse attorney profiles to the function and fortified this by regularly giving the legal team the opportunity to rotate tasks, as well as giving them fresh conducive feedback which keeps them prepared and trained to deal with the new increased legal complexity in the industry. Athié explains the importance of this by saying: ‘We see more legal complexity. Mexico has favourably evolved in the protection of individual rights through important constitutional amendments and now it is more common to see that important legal matters are solved through constitutional and judicial precedent and interpretation’. Prior to his current role, Athié was at Deutsche Bank Mexico servings as general counsel and chief compliance officer, advising on financial and advisory products to Mexican corporate and institutional clients. Between 1995 and 2002, Athié worked for the Securities Industry Association and The Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV) where he was in charge of the regulatory and market surveillance areas, also acting as the general counsel for the derivatives exchange, an experience which provided him the opportunity to interact with all Mexican Financial regulators as well as US regulators including the SEC, NYSE and Nasdaq. In 1991, while still in law school, he started working for various international law firms in Mexico City, including Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle, where he worked on corporate matters and later Santamarina y Steta, where he worked on commercial litigation matters.

Considering GFNorte’s status as one of Mexico’s largest banks and the largest financial group controlled by Mexican investors, Héctor Martín Ávila Flores holds a prominent position in the country’s in-house legal market serving the institution as general counsel, secretary of the board and managing director for legal affairs. Having served the company in this position since 2012, he is credited with a number of achievements including restructuring the legal team into a leaner and more efficient department comprised of around 400 legal and 100 operational employees. He also worked on the 2010 merger of IXE and Banorte valued at approximately US$1.3bn and the bank’s 2013 global IPO in which the Group raised US$2.5bn. More recently in 2017, he assisted on facilitating the company’s strategic partnership with PayPal and later played a key role on GFNorte’s merger agreement with Grupo Financiero Interacciones (GFInter) worth a reported US$1.4bn.

Grupo Idesa is one of the largest business groups in Mexico and produces, distributes, markets, and sells various petrochemical and chemical products in the country through four segments: petrochemicals, dstribution, logistics, and applications. General counsel for this major organisation is Karla Baez Elizondo. Baez joined the Group in 2015 after obtaining 11 years of private practice experience at law firms Galicia y Robles (2004-2007) and Mijares, Angoitia, Cortés y Fuentes (2008-2015). Since moving in-house to join Idesa, she has assisted the Group on an internal labour restructuring of the petrochemical division involving the transfer of 500 employees. Another feature of her tenure was working on the bidding process of the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) for the exploration of oil and gas blocks and with potential new projects that will develop business diversity within the company. ‘The aforementioned deals have enriched my professional career due to their complexity and the challenge of leading on them’, Baez says. She is also commended for having set up the legal department and ensuring it is proactive in reducing any kind of litigation, making transactions between the Group’s companies more efficient and ensuring they comply with all regulatory requirements. ‘The legal department is now involved in all strategic transactions of the company and has an important role on its business decisions’, she says adding, ‘the legal department has played an important role in facing the challenges and adversities suffered by the company during the last two years’. Baez graduated from Universidad Anáhuac del Sur in 2003, has a Master’s degree from Northwestern University in the United States and holds a tax graduate diploma from Universidad Iberoamericana.

Mexican multimedia company Grupo Televisa is one of the largest media conglomerates in the Spanish-speaking world. In Mexico it also an important cable operator and an operator of a leading direct-to-home satellite pay television system in Mexico. Having served as legal vice president and general counsel of the entire Group since 2006, Joaquin Balcárcel occupies a prominent position in Mexico’s in-house legal market. Leading a team of over 100 individuals, he worked on the company’s 2016 purchase of a 50% equity stake in Televisión Internacional, which it now fully owns as a result of the deal. The following year he assisted Televisa in its agreement with Univision Holdings to strengthen and expand their relationship for the production and distribution of content by unifying both of their content development and production efforts, another significant recent development for the company. Balcárcel has gained substantial praise from peers for his work at Televisia. Prior to his current role, he was general counsel for Televisa’s television division for two years and before that its legal director for corporate M&A deals and negotiations for five years. He also has a background in private practice, having practiced at law firm Martínez, Algaba, De Haro y Curiel between 1990 and 1999.

Wholly owned by Jones Lang LaSalle, JLL México has been providing specialised services to the Mexican real estate industry since 1991. Describing the company’s current chief legal counsel, Agustín Ballina Casares, one nominator explained: ‘[Ballina] is responsible for corporate affairs and general legal advisory at JLL in Mexico. His legal background goes back many years and he has plenty of experience in dealing with almost any legal matter in Mexico. He is very well known by his peers’. Ballina joined JLL México in April 2015 and according to another nominator he ‘developed and created several internal procedures in JLL that have eliminated several risks’ during his time at the company. Before JLL, Ballina spent eight years at Walmart de México where he was responsible for the legal area in its real estate division.

A corporate lawyer of repute, Ahiram Sarai Barbosa Celis has a track record of providing excellent legal and business advice in a number of roles. She currently ‘reviews all contracts in the company, checks the lawsuits, controls the corporate documents and the insurances’ as the sole in-house lawyer at Pantos Logistics Mexico, a global total logistics company. In the process of creating a legal department from scratch, Barbosa has the mind set to ‘create processes of control to avoid risk in the company’ and promotes the idea that ‘areas in the company [should] use the legal department before a problem, as a way of avoiding issues at the company’. In doing so, she used her past in-house experience to mould and form the new department with this in mind. Barbosa previously worked at LG Electronics México for three years, where she oversaw improvements in internal processes including ‘the adoption of an automated system’ to ‘organise loan documents, contracts and [the] implementation of the legal service system’. Barbosa states that this ‘led to a major increase in the efficiency of the team’s work’ whilst at the same time she has ‘spearheaded the adoption of master contracts, which has gone some way to mitigating the risks inherent in contract work’.

Daimler México’s general counsel and secretary Marcela Barreiro Castellanos boasts a varied in-house and private practice legal experience gained across a number of sectors, and takes on a wide set of responsibilities in her current role. Formerly a lawyer for the Mexican Federal Government’s revenue service, she subsequently worked as an in-house lawyer for Banobras and then Revueltas, Sarabia y Asociados law firm before initially joining Daimler México in 2008. Since then, her duties have expanded to include being secretary of the board of all legal entities in Mexico, president of the diversity and inclusion committee and a member of the company’s operating committees in all business units. She details a number of specific career highlights that she looks back on particularly proudly: ‘After joining, I managed to achieve an 80% reduction of the trials that took place before my appointment in the company. As well as this, I implemented a strategic restructuring at the company and have had a huge impact on the people within the team; the company trusts our judgment, and see that a consolidated legal element can analyse and prevent risks’. In order to achieve this, she also played a role in the legal function’s restructure, which she describes thus: ‘The legal department was organised by specialisations, giving qualified and complete legal advice to all the business units. In this way, my team interacts with all Group companies in Mexico, and the companies in turn have specialised lawyers who attend to their needs. My team is formed by six lawyers, four management levels and two junior lawyers serving five business units, four production plants, two parts distribution centres and the corporate entity, which in sum are more than 8,000 employees’.

Since April 2015 Mario Barreiro Castellanos has been employed as legal director for Latin America at the largest wind turbine company in the world, Vestas. Now ultimately responsible for corporate, compliance, contracts, and employment matters for the region, Barreiro takes on a cross-border brief that heavily involves turnkey contracts, supply and installation contracts, power purchase agreements and direct lender agreements among many others. He mentions undertaking ‘renewable energy deals in different countries under different legal frameworks in Latin America’ and ‘preparing and winning the tender for the first deal for an oil field services company to operate and maintain an onshore block in Mexico’ as sources of a particular sense of professional accomplishment. These projects also highlight Barreiro’s capabilities and the immense contribution he has made to the company’s fortunes. These recent successes can be due in no small part to the excellent legal support and commercial expertise demonstrated by Barreiro, and he explains just how positive the last year has been for Vestas in Latin America: ‘During 2017, Vestas closed renewable energy deals for more than 1GW (including the Reynosa Project one of the largest wind energy projects in Latin America, nominated as Renewable Project Finance Deal of the Year), opened new markets for the company like Honduras and successfully participated in auctions in Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia’.

Supporting the development of the world’s largest home improvement speciality retailer, director and associate general counsel Mónica Bichara joined The Home Depot in 2002, shortly after it entered the Mexican market. By 2005 she was promoted to director and associate general counsel, legal and corporate security and has been overseeing the regional legal matters of the company, comprising over 117 stores in 32 Mexican states, ever since. Previously, Bichara held a number of legal managerial positions at companies such as GRUMA, Internacional de Inversiones Virginia Tech and Global Payments. Amounting to over 20 years’ experience in retail, industrial, financial and non-profit legal environments, Bichara has been able to successfully handle the company’s organic growth as well as many transactions which have contributed to this progress. Through non-profit organisation Abogados MX, Bichara contirubtes to the wider legal profession setting up a network for women to exchange invaluable knowledge and establish the presence of women in the legal arena. She has been a director at Abogados MX since 2014.

Octavio Borunda serves as legal consulting director at Bonobras, a state owned development bank in Mexico with core business activities in municipal and state governments and project finance. Boasting 17 years of experience in the banking sector, Borunda is a professional recognised for his ability to handle activities related to credit analysis, obtaining vital authorisations, structuring and negotiating. He is also credited for supporting on the financing of infrastructure and public services and working to minimise federal public debt. Borunda is also said to have substantial expertise in the application of legislation and regulations applicable to the Mexican financial system. Borunda possesses a law degree from Universidad Anáhuac, and a Master’s qualification in public administration from the National Institute of Public Administration (INAP). He formerly served as a professor at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua and has held various public positions in Ministry of Finance and Public Credit and the Tax Administration Service.

Grupo Bimbo was founded in Mexico in 1943 and since then it has established itself as a world leader in the baking industry with a presence in 32 countries and global annual sales in excess of US$13.8bn. Having served Bimbo since 2006, general counsel, secretary and chief compliance officer Luis Miguel Briola has been involved on its most important expansion projects in recent years. In 2017 he worked on the joint venture agreement for 65% of shares in Ready Roti in India and the acquisitions of Grupo Adghal in Morocco, the first Bimbo ventures in the Indian market and African continent. In the same year he was also involved in Bimbo’s purchase of East Balt Bakeries, important for the Group’s strategic long-term relationships with the most important brands in the industry. In 2016, Briola worked on the acquisition of frozen bread business Panettiere in Colombia, General Mills in Argentina and Panrico in Spain and Portugal. With such a prolific repertoire on M&A deals in the last two years as well as his extensive in-house experience, Briola is a highly regarded candidate among Mexico’s corporate counsel.

Occupying a position that encompasses both legal and commercial counsel within the upper echelons of the business at IEnova, a Mexican energy infrastructure company, René Buentello Carbonell is an experienced in-house professional with a glowing reputation in the Mexican market. Currently responsible for the entire legal department of IEnova in Mexico, Buentello reports directly to the company president and CEO which is a testament to the high regard in which his advice is held. Most recently, Buentello has been central to a number of high profile and strategically important business projects for the company, ‘In January of this year we received two awards from Latin Finance, the Follow-On Offering of the Year and the Private Equity deal of the year for the acquisition of Ventika, a 252 megawatts wind generation facility’. With additional responsibility for IEnova’s corporate ethics department, Buentello is particularly proud of the company’s high ranking in the 2017 anti-corruption review in Expansión Magazine, a highly recognised business magazine published in Mexico and across Latin America.

Founded in 1990, Gentera (listed in the Mexican Stock Exchange) and its nine subsidiaries (Banco Compartamos, being one of them) represent the largest microfinance service provider in Latin America, leader in financial inclusion for the bottom of the pyramid economic group, with over 3.7m clients. General counsel of the group, Mariel Cabanas Suarez, is at the forefront of the mitigation of legal risks to the bank’s operations, drawing on a career that is rich in experience in the in-house legal banking industry. After amassing years of experience in notable financial institutions including Banco Nacional de México and Deutsche Bank, Cabanas first joined Gentera in February 2013 and has been a part of several business-defining transactions since. She explains her part in gaining approval from the National Banking and Securities Commission for Gentera’s acquisition of Intermex, a deal that was ‘particularly challenging due to applicable regulation in the US and Mexico, and implementing a new model of corporate governance’. The result was Gentera boosting its growth strategy and adding a new business in the benefit of its clients and investors in Mexico. In addition to these tangible successes, Cabanas has been adept at identifying and implementing change initiatives in response to external industry factors. Speaking of the ‘huge negative impact and devastating consequences of corruption in Mexico’, she has responded by collaborating with NGOs dedicated to fighting corruption and impunity, providing assistance in ‘7’. Heavily involved in efforts outside her role, Cabanas co-founded Abogadas MX (of which she is a Board Member) an NGO that promotes women’s development in the legal profession by designing initiatives to strengthen the skills and abilities of female lawyers.

Now approaching two decades of experience with América Móvil, Alejandro Cantú Jiménez continues to diligently and successfully support the operations of one of Mexico’s largest and most important businesses. Since joining the company in 2001 he has run the full gamut of M&A work, debt financing, credit and loan agreements as well as antitrust and telecommunications regulatory issues and found notable success in all of these areas, all whilst operating at the upper echelons of the corporate hierarchy. This impressive set of competencies places him among the very best in-house lawyers in his sector. Prior to joining América Móvil, Cantú worked in private practice with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson in New York and Mijares Angoitia, Cortés y Fuentes in Mexico City, reaching the rank of senior associate with the latter.

Headquartered in Spain, Banco Sabadell opened its first representative office in Mexico in 1991. The bank continues to develop its business in Mexico, with the launch of its retail banking division in January 2018. Overseeing some of the bank’s most recent developments in Mexico from a legal standpoint is the talented legal director, Luis Alberto Cárdenas Díaz. He assisted with the incorporation of the company in 2015 and helped to implement all regulatory and contractual aspects required to fully operate as a banking institution in Mexico. He joined as legal director in 2015, and as part of an internal restructuring process and by virtue of Banco Sabadell’s rapid growth, became head of corporate and commercial legal affairs in 2017. Described as a ‘driving force’ within the bank, Cárdenas has been integral to the company’s journey in its critical formative years: ‘This past three years in Sabadell have proven to have a real impact in the financial market in Mexico. Three years ago, Sabadell was a relatively small non-banking financial entity, today we are one of the most important banking actors in the lending sector, with a presence in the whole country’, explains Cárdenas. His ability to select a team to accommodate this monumental growth has been a key feature of his role as legal director. In fact he cites that having the opportunity to set up the legal department with ‘highly efficient and talented’ individuals at SabCapital (the non-banking financial entity that preceded the incorporation of Banco Sabadell in Mexico) and later at Banco Sabadell has been a highlight of his career and something that has been noticed by all that work with him: ‘In addition to considering Luis an excellent lawyer, we’ve come to know him as a good person deeply caring of his staff, who as the legal team of a new bank, have been under great pressure to position Banco Sabadell in the competitive Mexican market while performing with standards of care and diligence’, reveals a nominator. One of the transactions he’s led his team through include the syndication of the “Fermaca La Laguna” and “Fermaca Occidente” gas pipelines credit facility, with the combined loan amount of more than US$800m. Prior to this transaction he participated in the syndication of the credit facility for the construction of a new airport in Mexico City, which was worth more than US$3bn. With such achievements under his belt it is not surprising he earned a very strong reputation among his peers. Cárdenas previously served as senior legal counsel at HSBC México, where he was part of the team in charge, and that won, some of the most important litigation procedures for that entity. Recently, he was recognised as one of the “30 under 30 years old” leaders in Mexico, by the renowned Mexican magazine “Expansión”.

Mexico City was the location of the first foreign store of US retail giant Walmart. Since 1991, the multibillion hypermarkets chain operator has added over 2,300 further retail units in the country. Having been with the company since March 2014, Raymundo Carrillo de Albornoz first impressed the company’s internal management as director of litigation, seamlessly handling litigation affairs as well as antitrust matters for Walmex and its subsidiaries (Superama, Bodega Aurrera and Sam’s Club). As a result of these successful efforts, Carrillo was promoted to the position of corporate legal director in July 2017. In his current role he continues to lead on litigation and antitrust matters but also has responsibility for the contracts, corporate and labour departments. Prior to Walmex, Carrillo was at Grupo Modelo between 2006 and 2014. Moving up the ranks quickly, he held various positions including legal director for litigation, head of compliance and oversaw the implementation of the governance, risk and compliance programme in all the Grupo Modelo companies. With over 20 years of professional experience, he is well known in Mexico’s legal circles as one of the country’s finest in-house litigants.

A long standing in-house legal professional within Mexico’s financial services sector, Blanca Verónica Casillas Placencia has worked for Banco del Bajío since November 1995. Being recognised for her talent and diligence, she was promoted to sub-director of the legal area before assuming her current role of legal director of the corporate division in November of 2007. Relied upon by the business not only for her legal nous, Casillas was named the secretary of the board of directors in 2010 and is also part of the bank’s risk and communication and control committees. Having founded the bank’s legal team over 20 years ago – which she considers the ‘main achievement’ in her career – Casillas has overseen the expansion of a function from two to 25 lawyers which provides ‘support and follow up to the recovery of legal portfolio, criminal litigation, legal advice to the branch network, [and] attention to complaints of CONDUSEF’. The team also supports on general corporate affairs which have recently encompassed matters ‘related to mergers and acquisitions’. Such efforts have had a real effect on business fortunes, Casillas herself advising on the incorporation and subsequent exit processes of shareholders and the implementation of new corporate governance practices. She has also advised the company during a tumultuous time in the financial sector and helped steer the company through changes required by the financial reforms of 2014. In 2016, she participated in the IFC exit process as a shareholder of the institution and went on to participate in the process that led Banco del Bajío to offer its shares publically on the Mexican Stock Exchange. She sums up her tenure at the company: ‘Reinforcement of the structure of the [legal] area and continuous update of the policies and procedures allowed by law; support the operation covering the legal risk and operational; seeking at all moments the creation of value for all investors, employees and interested third parties, with sustainability criteria and long-term vision’.

Libbey Glass is a leading manufacturer in retail glassware with a number of different brands in its portfolio, and its operations in the Latin America region rely on the skills of legal manager Luis Manuel Chao Guajardo to manage its ambitious business agenda and large portfolio of 200 plus trademarks in Latin America from a legal standpoint. An expert advisor that is proud of his experience dealing with issues in ‘complex legal environments’ such as Colombia and Brazil as well as his home market of Mexico, Chao can boast of a number of achievements throughout a tenured and impressive in-house legal career including ‘negotiating and executing’ a deal between Libbey Glass and energy giant Iberdrola on a five year contract worth around US$33m. Obtaining a background in private practice, including as a real estate associate for Creel, García-Cuéllar, Aiza y Enríquez, Chao first joined the in-house sector as a legal manager for construction infrastructure firm PYECSA and subsequently spent nearly four years as an attorney for Sutherland Global Services Mexico with a focus on Latin American affairs. Presiding over high-value transactions during this time, Chao managed to assist the company in achieving its US$1bn revenue goal for 2016 by virtue of his work on an M&A deal involving American analytics firm Nuevora, valued at around US$5m. He also played a key a key role in a ‘major arbitration award enforcement in Mexico’ which was won in Texas for proceedings worth around US$2m. As well as his strictly legal role, Chao serves as the leader for Libbey Glass with regards to public relations and crisis management, which he states involves ‘keeping good relationships with trade associations and external organisations’, as well as ‘representing the company at local industrial associations’.

Described by colleagues as a ‘fantastic lawyer and professional’ Valeria Chapa has overseen the legal function of the international conglomerate Honeywell across the Latin American region for the last decade. Initially starting out as general counsel working out of Mexico City, Chapa was promoted to the more strategic, vice presidential position in December 2015. ‘She has become far more than simply the head of legal in Latin America but a business element of the company’, a source shares. A sharp and pragmatic lawyer with in-depth knowledge of a variety of areas of the law, Chapa has impressed with her unique approach to managing external law firms, as well as her strong work-ethic. Prior to joining Honeywell, Chapa worked at multinational law firm Baker McKenzie, initially as junior associate (2000-2001), then as senior associate (2001-2008) and finally as national partner (2008-2010). She holds a law degree from Universidad de Monterrey and a Master’s degree from Columbia University.

During his five-year tenure at Elementia, the Mexican building materials conglomerate, Santiago Bernard Covelo has impressed with his work on a number of high profile corporate transactions, such as acquisitions of M&A companies in Mexico and the US, and Elementia’s landmark 2015 initial public offering. ‘I consider myself as a business lawyer who has the capability to find ways to make deals happen while avoiding the legal risks and contributing to the EBITDA of the company’, Bernard shares. On the organisational side of things, Bernard has added significant value to Elementia by creating a functional operating structure for the newly created legal area within the company, subsequently establishing a legal network in over 11 countries around the world and implementing a technology platform in order to manage all legal requirements related to documents. Bernard says: ‘Through these achievements I´m giving legal security to our shareholders and maintaining the company freedom from legal matters through more control and visibility’. Previous roles in Bernard’s career include legal head at Carnot Laboratorios from 2007 to 2012 and executive legal manager at Walmart de México from 2002 until 2007. He’s also held important in-house roles at AT & T and Grupo Aco during his successful professional career.

A veteran of Daimler companies since 2002, Marcos Czacki is a highly respected in-house professional who has amassed a huge amount of experience in the areas of automotive, finance and anti-corruption and anti-money laundering efforts (indeed, he is a former secretary of the Mexico chapter of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists). He also has immense business acumen. Subsequent to his long and successful period as general counsel of Daimler Financial Services México from 2007 to 2014, Czacki was appointed as operations director of the company, highlighting the immense esteem in which his commercial and organisational abilities are held by the executive management of the company. Czacki’s core philosophy, that of being ‘business-oriented but also part of the core business of the company’, explains the attributes he possesses that have enabled his success. He has now added general counsel responsibilities to his operations director ones, meaning that Czacki is a hugely important figure for Daimler Financial Services México. His already extremely successful record implies that he will rise to the challenge once again.

Recognised for his outstanding support to the German multinational tyre company, Luis Enríquez De Rivera Morales is the current general counsel for Mexico and Latin America for Continental, encompassing a number of different jurisdictions and legal practice areas. Highlighted in the GC Powerlist: Mexico in 2016 and 2017, Enríquez has added to his already impressive credentials in recent months; during 2017 he states his involvement in the ‘implementation of a flexible work program’ on behalf of Continental’s Mexican subsidiary as a particular career highlight. This was the first jurisdiction outside Germany in which the program was rolled out, and involved pioneering methods such as ‘telecommuting, sabbaticals and alternative working’. These initiatives display Enríquez’s innovative nature and ability to implement new ideas, resulting in ‘protection [for] employees [involving] rigid and strict rules for working shifts, overtime and working conditions’ whilst adhering to the existing local labour framework. Displaying his high level of corporate nous, Enríquez assisted the launch of three new greenfield projects as well as a global third party acquisition involving Mexican, Chilean and Argentinian components. Enríquez states that an emphasis on providing positive business-affecting results has helped bring success in his in-house career. His motivation is to ‘change the perception of [being] a “deal breaker” to a “deal maker” by becoming a true advisor for the business. Likewise, set the bar on timely responses to the internal customers while becoming pragmatic in the different situations taking into account the outside advisors opinions but clearly defining the line when it’s an internal company decision’. Also keen to ensure the best outcomes for his staff and being an exemplar in the Mexican legal community, he is a proponent of ‘applying new policies (including Flexitime) within the legal department’, citing the example of a team member who is ‘a working mother [with] two new-borns and a toddler’. Further illustrating his commitment to diversity, Enríquez’s team consists of a ‘majority of women and is why having flex-time and mobile working policies has worked very good in giving opportunities to women. My team has also proven to be a leader in diversity matters within the company’. In addition to his general counsel role, Enríquez is president of the Corporate Committee of the National Association of Companies Attorneys (ANADE) and secretary of the board of directors of the Mexican Rubber Industry Chamber, besides being an official translator of the English language by Mexico City’s Superior Court.

Marianna Elena Del Río Díaz joined Linio, the largest e-commerce platform in Latin America, in 2014 as the legal director for Mexico and regional compliance director. Under her management, Linio’s legal department has become a preventative function when facing complaints regarding consumer and intellectual property issues. In this regard, Del Río successfully conducted ‘containment work’ by stabilising relationships with customers and third parties to significantly avoid litigations from arising: ‘When faced with demand, we always try to get a friendly arrangement, it always prevails’, she says. Another important change Del Río executed was establishing terms and conditions on commercial contracts with sellers, which was considered as a vital achievement internally. During her career she has taken up roles in a number of law firms, with a specific focus on corporate and intellectual property, she also additionally participated in the legal direction of renewable energy companies and Central de Aduanas México. A distinctive feature of Del Río’s career has been taking managing positions from an early age, allowing her to familiarise herself with a range of bigger challenges which she acknowledges ‘undoubtedly today makes for a more solid formation’. She highlights that diversity and variety have been important formative factors in her professional life, as it’s given her the opportunity to work with a large range of people who have contributed to her holistic career. Being able to participate in different projects and branches of law has brought a different vision to her career and its execution, something which has allowed her to define her career in e-commerce as she continues to contribute to important policies and processes to the company, adding to the legal departments’ image of integrity and professionalism.

Oro Negro was founded in 2012 and is a leading Mexican company that provides integrated and diversified oilfield services. Assisting with the company’s drilling services, Alonso del Val Echeverría oversees all legal operations of the organisation. With over 14 years of professional legal experience, del Val encompasses a vast amalgamation of experience in financial and intermediation operations in Latin America. With those qualities he has been able to guide Oro Negro on the settlement of a US$725m senior secured issued bond as a well as tough contract negotiations in recent times. Prior to joining Oro Negro, del Val worked for seven years at Bulltick Capital Markets, an investment banking firm based in Miami. He has more than seven years of experience in private practice, advising clients in the US and Latin America. From 1998 to 2004 he worked with Martínez, Algaba, Estrella, De Haro and Galván-Duque, a law firm in Mexico City, where he represented foreign and domestic clients. Del Val obtained his Bachelor’s degree in law from Universidad Iberoamericana and also has a LLM from Northwestern University.

Jorge Dueñas Zapata joined Boehringer Ingelheim Mexico in 2000, and in 2009 he assumed the role of director of legal ethics and compliance. He is now the member of the board and management committee for the pharmaceutical company’s animal health and human health division, across Mexico, Central America and Caribbean countries. Over the course of his 18 years at Boehringer Ingelheim, Dueñas has reached a high level of adherence to the international regulatory and legislative regime in the area of human and animal health. He has also been a key figure for the company on international deals and acquisitions between some of the biggest pharmaceuticals companies, effortlessly facing different aspects of antitrust, local and international regulations in order to close transactions. Within the organisation, Dueñas has improved the digitalisation processes, grasping the importance of controlling legal information and reiterating this to the legal department. He has also significantly changed the legal department’s mind-set from a reactive to proactive business partner, implementing the compliance philosophy inside the organisation at all levels. Demonstrating his worth to and status in the industry, Dueñas is also a member of the CETIFARMA and FEDEFARMA, the council of ethics and transparency for the pharmaceutical industry in Mexico and Central America respectively.

Boasting advanced skills in compliance, antitrust, litigation and regulatory activities acquired over a 14-year period, Raúl Escalante currently serves as a legal corporate director at Brazilian-Belgian global beverage and brewing company AB InBev. Based in Mexico City, Escalante services both the company’s Mexico Zone and Central American operation. Prior to his promotion to this role a year-and-a-half ago Escalante was employed as a compliance director for the company’s Mexican business, and provided extensive coverage within the anti-corruption, antitrust and white-collar domain. Areas of praise include Escalante’s work on developing AB InBev’s antitrust compliance program and strategy, his design of processes to ensure compliance with commitments agreed with the Mexican Competition Commission, as well as his contribution to various M&A transactions. Before joining AB InBev, Escalante spent nearly a decade in private practice, working at law firm Becerra Pocoroba.

Described as an ‘ambitious self-starter’, Adrian Estrada is known in the industry for his flexible approach to managing legal processes, as well as his high susceptibility to change. These attributes come in handy in Estrada’s current role as general counsel and institutional affairs director at the largest steel conglomerate in Mexico Ternium, as he has to constantly demonstrate dynamism and re-evaluate his approach when managing both the legal and institutional affairs functions in an ever changing industry. Most of Estrada’s former career has been dedicated to the household appliances sector, with nearly a decade spent at Whirlpool Corporation in roles across Mexico and the US. Impressive achievements during Estrada’s tenure at there include his efforts to navigate the Mexican legal and foreign trade groups during the global financial crisis of 2008 and advising the company on a number of important transactions. Estrada’s first in-house role was with the professional services business Grupo Imsa, where he demonstrated a real nous for working in M&A teams by participating in several large international M&A transactions.

Carlos A. Facha Lara joined Grupo Financiero Inbursa as a legal manager in 1996. After a spin–off of Inbursa in 2005, IDEAL was incorporated and Facha assumed the general counsel position. He also assumed the general counsel position of Minera Frisco with additional responsibility as the head of the environmental area and mining concessions area and today manages around 25 people (lawyers and engineers) across both IDEAL and Minera Frisco. He is the secretary of the board of directors of both IDEAL and Minera Frisco, which covers around 50 subsidiaries. An instrumental change he’s made is implementing a policy of containing all the legal work in-house instead of outsourcing to third parties thereby reducing legal costs by 50% which has made it one of the most efficient areas within the company. Amongst his achievements Facha has led on IDEAL’s most important transnational transactions as well as the biggest financing of Minera Frisco in its history, reducing a large quantity of litigations for both companies in addition.

ENGIE’s presence in Mexico goes back almost 30 years and today, through its subsidiary ENGIE MaxiGas, has a vast portfolio for providing energy and gas services to the country. Among its staff of over 800 Mexican employees is the organisation’s leading legal professional Raul Felix Saul. He has served ENGIE’s local operations for over seven years and currently occupies the position of legal director, ethics officer and corporate secretary. Saul continues to impress peers in the industry with his coverage of legal services related to the operation of ENGIE’s three transmission pipelines that stretch over 1,290 kilometres. He worked at global law firm Baker McKenzie for almost 10 years before moving in–house to take on his role at ENGIE. During his time at the firm he served as a partner and climate change and renewable energy coordinator, accumulating extensive knowledge of the energy sector and corporate law in the process.

A heavily team-oriented legal professional, Alejandro Fraga Land makes it clear that his career successes were part of a collaborative effort that could not have been possible without the support of the other high-quality lawyers that he has been able to work with. Fraga speaks of a highly varied set of accomplishments over the past few years of his career: ‘In the last ten years I have successfully participated in the defence of competition cases, been part of M&A teams to incorporate new territories to our region and participated in various diversity committees. This has increased my business acumen while simultaneously allowing me to acknowledge the paramount importance of compliance and the significant contribution that a diversified team can bring to a company. It has allowed me to better understand and represent the company’s, internal clients’ and end users’ interests’. Fraga waxes lyrical about the abilities of his team, both individually and collectively, to contribute real and measurable value to Praxair. ‘Our in-house group is an industry expert, and all company lawyers have broad company business acumen while also having specific areas of expertise’, he explains. ‘This enables the organisation to seek general and specific counsel in-house, and has reduced the use of external counsel which has had a significant impact on legal expenses’. Fraga mentions his and his team’s successful defence of competition cases, large collection litigations, successful IP litigation, M&As and the integration and implementation of compliance programs into new territories in the region as part of their greatest accomplishments in recent years, and evidence of their professionalism and commitment to the company’s cause. ‘Our legal department is a strong contributor to the results of the company’, Fraga concludes. ‘While representing and defending the interest of the company we thrive on identifying opportunities by which we can contribute to the business and improve client relationships’.

Formerly general counsel of Grupo Kaluz, Javier García García is a highly experienced and knowledgeable legal counsel and a well-regarded motivator of the business people around him. During his time at Kaluz he developed a reputation as an M&A and transactional specialist and was at the forefront of deals in excess of a billion US dollars. García took on a new challenge in December 2017 when he moved to petrochemical giant Mexichem in the role of general counsel for Latin America. Here, he looks set to continue his record of achievement in one of the most high profile and prestigious in-house legal roles in Latin America.

Ricardo Garduño has been employed at Citi since 1999 and currently serves as managing director and legal head for the bank’s Consumer Business division in Mexico. As a member of the legal committee at the Mexican Banks Association Garduño is able to contribute to Mexico’s financial system at a nationwide level. Over the last four years in his role at Citibanamex, Garduño has directly participated in a deep transformation of the bank’s Mexican franchise by facilitating the implementation of new business trends. He tackled new market challenges especially relating to the digitalisation of the financial services and created a robust control environment in line with shareholders’ and regulators’ expectations. Other positions held by Garduño over his time at Citi include legal head of the Institutional Clients Group in Mexico, legal head of corporate governance and regulatory affairs, deputy secretary of the board of directors of Grupo Financiero Banamex and Banco Nacional de México and secretary of the board of directors of Acciones y Valores Banamex and Impulsora de Fondos Banamex. Sponsored by Citi, Garduño worked for one year at law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell. He started his legal career as a lawyer at Mexico’s central bank, Banco de México, where over a five-year period he had the opportunity to closely work on the implementation of the Financial Chapter of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to welcome foreign financial institutions in Mexico. He also impressed with his work on drafting of the constitutional and legal framework to provide Banco de México with autonomy from the Federal Government and the bailout of Mexico’s banking industry in the aftermath of the country’s 1994 financial crisis.

Canadian company Magna International is a leading global automotive supplier with operations in 28 countries. In Mexico, the company has 31 manufacturing plants, one product development, engineering and sales centre and almost 30,000 employees. Recognised for her talent within the organisation is Sara Garza, who serves as Magna International’s senior manager - legal counsel. She joined the company in February 2015 and, by virtue of overseeing company operations from a legal perspective, helps facilitate Magna’s ambitious expansion plans, for example within her first twelve months Garza handled legal matters for the opening of a new facility in Coahuila. Garza has impressed a number of nominators in a short space of time in her in-house career; prior to Magna, Garza spent 13 years in private practice at a number of esteemed law firms. This includes almost a decade at CEM Abogados. She holds Master’s degrees from US and Spanish institutions and graduated in law from the University of Monterrey in 2001.

In June 2017 Álvaro Gómez Godoy took the reins of the general counsel role at Grupo Rotoplas, and in doing so assumed responsibility of dispensing comprehensive legal advice to Latin America’s leading provider of individual and integrated solutions for storing, carrying, and treating water. Taking this role in the wake of the departure of previous general counsel Laura Mariscal, Gómez brings a wealth of experience gained from legal roles in notable Mexican companies including manufacturing company Grupo Kuo, where he worked for over six years. First joining Grupo Kuo as a lawyer in 2008, Gómez was promoted to legal manager in 2013, encompassing responsibility for the legal management of the company’s international affairs on behalf of its businesses in China, Europe, India and the US. During this time he also oversaw legal aspects of all of Grupo Kuo’s transactions with international elements. A contracts specialist, Gómez oversaw the negotiation, preparation and review of international contracts during this period, as well as having a role in negotiations, definition of strategies and monitoring of contentious matters in which the companies of Grupo Kuo in Mexico and abroad are immersed. Between 2016 and 2017 he worked as a legal coordinator at Grupo Dynasol, entailing the represention of Grupo Kuo during the joint venture agreement between Grupo Kuo and Repsol, providing the legal basis for the ambitious project that combined production facilities in the synthetic rubber businesses and their specialties. In addition to his in-house work, Gómez contributes to the body of industry knowledge through his professorship at Universidad Panamericana, where he lectures on international commercial arbitration and is the assistant professor of the Private International Law Chair (Santa Fe Campus) since August 2012.

A versatile in-house legal professional, Jorge Goñi Camarillo’s time as an external counsel has involved supporting the operations of many group companies, showcasing his immense work ethic, attention to detail and ability to manage multiple objectives simultaneously. Beginning his in-house legal career with Grupo Elektra as a litigation specialist, he first moved to Banco Azteca in 2004 as a mortgage legal manager. In 2009, after a stint back in the Grupo Elektra legal team, Goñi re-joined Banco Azteca as director of corporate collection, a very tricky role which he excelled in, driving the bank’s business portfolio from 2.9% to 0.8% delinquency. From 2012, he has been general legal director Mexico and Latin America, taking on a multi-disciplinary and cross-border workload.

Part of the global investment management businesses of US Fortune Global 500 company Prudential Financial, PGIM Real Estate has been redefining the real estate investing landscape since 1970. The company has been investing in Mexico since 2002 managing funds that specialise in industrial, residential and retail properties. Described as ‘an absolute pragmatic counsel’, Amanda González is vice president, corporate counsel for PGIM Real Estate’s Mexico operations. She had only been at the company for just over one year as legal director before being promoted to her current position in March 2017. By May of that year, she had assisted on all contracts related to the raising of Mex$4.4bn by the company for PruMex IV CKD, a closed-end real estate fund investing across various property sectors in Mexico. Having worked in-house in Mexico’s real estate sector since 2006, González is credited by one nominator for ‘getting the legal issues and reaching conclusions that benefits the business’. Prior to PGIM Real Estate, she worked in the legal department of GE Capital Real Estate in Mexico. González has a Master’s degree in law from New York University and completed her undergraduate degree at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in 2007.

Mexican conglomerate Grupo BAL operates agricultural and livestock, commercial operations, industrial operations and financial services businesses through its portfolio of subsidiary companies. It is one of the biggest and most respected conglomerates in Mexico, with its diverse industries. After 12 successful years in the transport industry, Ligia C. González Lozano joined the Group in October 2017 reporting to the general counsel. As legal and M&A director she is responsible for legal advising on M&A and finance transactions as well as day-to-day in-house general counselling. In social responsibility activities, recently González has been behind the launching of the “Integrity and Ethical Business Behaviour Code” issued by the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (CCE). Another standout achievement in her in-house career was during her time at Grupo ADO, when González was an instrumental part of the organisation’s growth, contributing to the international expansion of a major transportation company with complex governmental regulations in different geographies. González is Board member of the Mexican Bar Association (BMA) as well as of the National Association of In-house Lawyers (ANADE). She is also Board member of the Mexican chapter of the International Chamber of Commerce and consultant member of the committee of rule of law in the main business association in Mexico (CCE). Regarding these 360 grades roles, González says, ‘all of that empowers me but also forces me to keep working, studying and innovating with passion’. She additionally continues to be speaker, lecturer, international private law professor at the prestigious Escuela Libre de Derecho, and honorific advisor of the Ministry of Foreign Relations. In 2018, she has been named one of the most influential female Mexican lawyers by the “Foro Jurídico” Law Review.

An in-house lawyer with over 10 years of experience, Jessica Guerra Cruces is a corporate and intellectual property counsel with a track record of delivering at a number of international companies including Philip Morris, Office Depot, Walmart and now Kimberly-Clark. Three years ago Guerra assumed her current position as senior manager counsel of Kimberly-Clark de México. Having served in a managerial position at the company for six years prior, Guerra had earned the respect of senior management for her technical legal skills and understanding of the business. Guerra has effortlessly renewed and restructured the entire legal area during her time at Kimberly-Clark. Some of the changes she’s made include reducing fines in regulatory affairs by up to 99%. She has also created synergies and fellowship between the areas she attends to, generating a cohesive environment that improves the whole work area and perception of the legal department. ‘I have made synergies because in many of the areas where I’ve been working lawyers represent a delay and complications to many people. So I have worked very hard to prove that we (the lawyers) are a friendly and helpful area that exist to support them’, says Guerra.

Denise Guillén Lara has practiced at a varied set of companies and firms over the course of a 24-year legal career, prior to joining Nielsen, Guillén directed and collaborated in the legal department of GE International Mexico, Grupo CIE, and Ingram Micro having her first in-house experience in 1998 when she joined the legal team of TV Azteca. Guillén also worked as an outside counsel for roughly 10 years giving her a ‘holistic experience’ of being both inside and outside counsel. Guillén joined Nielsen in 2010, and has made a huge contribution to the company in Latin America since. Now vice-president, legal and compliance and integrity leader for Latin America, she works closely with the different business units and senior executives, she is responsible for providing legal strategic advice identifying legal and regulatory issues as well as handling all litigation matters in the 19 Latin American countries that she covers. Guillén is also part of the crisis management response team at Nielsen, her studies at MIT (Crisis Management and Business Continuity at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have been most helpful for her success at this task. Finally, she is head of the Compliance and Integrity Program in Latin America where she handles integrity cases and fosters the integrity culture within the company, therefore she is seen as a reference of business within the legal community. Guillén carries out her role with a clear approach and therefore is a prominent member in Nielsen’s workforce, being regarded as a real business partner. Guillén is also an inspiration within Nielsen for its female executives worldwide, being an active member of WIN (Women in Nielsen). She is also an ambassador for diversity and inclusion outside Nielsen where she is a member of the Board of Directors of Abogadas MX, an association that just recently executed a collaboration agreement with the Mexico Bar Association (Barra Mexicana de Abogados) aimed at empowering female lawyers to reach leadership positions. Her vast legal expertise and business acumen have moulded her to make her a great ambassador for the company and the legal industry. In another example of her activities as an ambassador, Guillén is currently an honorary counsellor of the Consultative Council of INAI (Instituto Nacional de Acceso a la Información).

David Gustavo Lamoyi’s career prior to joining Grupo Aeroméxico was one of public service, first with the Federal Consumer Protection Agency (Profeco), and later the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP). He first joined Mexico’s flag air carrier in 2005 as vice president legal contracts and litigation, and his role with the company has expanded steadily since this time; he was made senior vice president of compliance and corporate social responsibility in 2008 (where he founded the department) and general counsel in 2013, with corporate senior vice president of compliance responsibilities added to this in 2016. Lamoyi has been at the forefront of some of the company’s most important long and short-term projects over the course of his tenure, including defending the company’s indispensable landing and take-off slot rights at Mexico City Airport and the signing of the cooperation agreement with Delta Airlines – a project that he describes as a ‘very complex, regulation-intensive joint venture between a Mexican and US carrier that hadn’t been attempted before’. In particular, however, he played an instrumental role in the successfully gained regulatory approval for a cash tender offer made by Delta Airlines for 49% of the company as one of the most important deals he has been involved with. ‘This was a historic transaction for the Mexican airline industry and the biggest investment a foreign airline has made in a Mexican carrier’. Lamoyi has also had much to contribute in terms of increasing the visibility and accessibility of the legal function to the company as a whole, and explains that he ‘changed the way the organisation perceived the legal department’, via a number of measures including ‘regularly holding seminars to train people outside the law department about routine responsibilities that have a legal implication’, a proactive step that was responsible for a corresponding increase in the legal capabilities of the organisation as a whole.

Carlos Hassey Artigas is an integral member of the Grupo Aeroméxico in-house legal team in his position of senior vice president legal and deputy general counsel, and lays out the main responsibilities that operating in a flagship airline’s legal function entails. These are many and varied, and include: ‘commercial agreements, financing, capital markets, leasing, transactional and corporate structures, operational issues and regulatory matters, dispute resolution and litigation’. He has amassed an impressive roll of honours whilst operating with the company. He mentions reducing the ground delays of new aircrafts prior to starting operations by 70% as a particularly important achievement for the company (and one that was ‘really complicated’ to manage), as was working on the Aeroméxico Tower real estate transaction which brought ‘great economic terms for Aeroméxico’. A commercially-minded lawyer, Hassey is mindful that the legal function must be ‘pro-business without putting Aeroméxico at risk’, and instructs the team to ‘act as an in-house law firm’. Hassey has also pioneered a summer associate program with an external law firm, whereby one of Aeroméxico’s junior lawyers gains valuable experience with a top US law firm in Miami. This has had a positive effect on team morale and the capabilities of the junior lawyers involved.

AT&T has invested US$3bn in Mexico to deploy its high-speed mobile network service that will provide coverage, by the end of 2018, to 100 million people in Mexico. Employing 19,000 professionals in the country, the telecommunications giant has a vast presence in Mexico. In having responsibility for all legal and regulatory matters the company faces in Mexico, vice president and general counsel for AT&T México, George Troy Hatch heads a legal and regulatory team of around 40 lawyers and 30 other professionals and support staff. During his time in the role, Hatch coordinated the closing of AT&T’s acquisition of Nextel Mexico and Iusacell in 2015, making AT&T México the second largest wireless carrier in the country as a result. More recently he oversaw the company’s 2017 agreement with The Secretariat of Economic Development of Mexico City (SEDECO) which focuses on the development of an “Intelligent City”.

Gabriela Hernández Morgan joined Consubanco in 2007, a retail bank that was just starting up at the time, to lead the in-house legal team, and oversee all legal aspects of the business. Since starting, the legal team has grown from a team of two lawyers to a 26 person team that oversees all legal matters as well as internal control and compliance. Consubanco is now focused on the payroll loans market and over ten years has grown to cover the industry with a US$325.3m portfolio, 125 offices and five affiliates that originate loans for Consubanco. One way she’s contributed to this growth and the workings of the legal department has been to train a legal team of ‘go-to advisors’ for each department on laws and regulations based on risks and ethics. This has allowed the bank to improve its internal control system and operational risk management, both relevant issues for supervisors around the world. Hernández started working in the financial sector fresh out of law school, where she joined the in-house legal team of Banco Santander México in a junior capacity but worked up the ranks quickly throughout her 14 year tenure there. She left as legal director for retail banking and financial products, overseeing legal issues for everything from retail banking, mortgages and credit cards to business policy. It was here where she had the chance to learn the ropes of all the departments, giving her the opportunity to understand the way a retail bank operates and allowing her to become an effective partner for business units: ‘I got to really understand the importance of close interrelation between the legal department and the rest of the bank’s departments’, says Hernández. As someone who believes in the importance of empowering women, Hernández takes part in initiatives that focus on helping women to become the best professionals they can: ‘Being a woman in the banking world forced me to traduce into determination, any negative energy that comes my way regarding my capacity of doing things as well as a men. I’ve learned that I don’t need to act as a man to be a successful legal professional, just by being myself and true to my values I’ve learned the way to build productive meaningful business relationships with both men and women’, reveals Hernández.

One of the most formidably capable real estate and project finance legal professionals in Mexico, Hans Hutterer has been at the head of FINSA Real Estate Group’s legal function for over 15 and a half years. Joining the company as its first legal counsel in 2002, Hutterer created the company’s legal department from scratch. He has participated in the incorporation of several joint ventures with institutional investors such as AIG, GE Capital and Walton Street Capital; and executed a number of blockbuster deals for the company during the course of his time there, including the sale of over US$1.5bn of industrial assets; and two public offerings of trust certificates worth approximately US$500m. Hutterer is also a member of the board of directors and investment and ethics committees of the company. With almost 20 years’ experience in the real estate and finance sectors, prior to joining FINSA he worked in Jauregui, Navarrete, Nader y Rojas.

Earning over US$8bn in 2016, Grupo México is Mexico’s fourth largest company and its largest mining corporation. Corporate legal director Mauricio Ibañez joined the company in 2012 to head the legal function of the entire Group, a prestigious position considering the size and profile of the organisation. In 2015 he gained significant industry recognition for overseeing, successfully coordinating and settling the largest ever civil and criminal environmental investigation and remediation undertaken by Mexico’s Ministry of the Environment. More recently he helped the Group raise nearly US$1bn in 2017 through the IPO of its rail unit which helped fund its purchase of Florida East Coast Railway for US$2.1bn – another large project Ibañez was involved in. At the time of writing he is assisting Grupo México evaluate a possible IPO for its main subsidiary, Americas Mining Corporation. Prior to Grupo México he was the founding and managing partner of Ibañez Schriever & Hoffmann for eight years. He has also enjoyed successful spells at distinguished law firms such as Jáuregui, Navarrete, Nader & Rojas, Rowe & Maw; White & Case, and Baker & McKenzie.

Elementia is a Mexican manufacturer of construction materials with an international presence. As Elementia’s legal manager, Selene Jasso González has 65 people under her responsibility across the American continent stretching from the US to Bolivia. Part of her success in this role has been the way in which she has automatized and simplified the company’s internal legal processes with the help of legal software and clear procedures to be more efficient and to control and manage all corporate affairs. Jasso is known for being a builder of an effective team, an essential trait in all counsels leading large legal departments. As a leader she has the ability to create and maintain a dynamic and creative work environment with clear objectives and results orientated goals for her team. Among her many in-house achievements, Jasso has participated led on the global offering of US$425m senior unsecured notes in November 2014. The following year Jasso was the lead lawyer on Elementia’s global IPO worth US$3.9bn and then a club deal financing for Mex$3.29bn. In 2016 she coordinated and negotiated the operations and transactions related to Elementia’s Greenfield expansion in Tula facilitating all agreements and environmental regulations to comply with local and federal transactions. In the same year she participated in the acquisition of a 53% stake in US company Giant Cement Holding as part of Elementia’s expansion into the US cement sector. Most recently Jasso has been responsible for creating the compliance legal area that monitors the regulations, internal policies and procedures. To date she has implemented policies for corporate governance, personal data protection, ant-bribery and antitrust.

A multifaceted legal professional who is qualified in both Mexico and the US, Pablo Jimenez Zorrilla occupies a senior legal position that is concerned with the Middle Americas region for Anheuser-Busch InBev. As part of this remit, Jimenez is responsible for the legal matters, institutional relations, external communications and corporate social responsibility of the company in Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador. Jimenez is a proven leader and utilises his leadership and management skills by virtue of his role leading a team of both legal and non-legal professionals that total over 100 people. As part of his remit, he is a key figure in defending the interests of three of the largest beer brands on the continent; Grupo Modelo in Mexico, Cervecería Hondureña in Honduras and Industrias La Constancia in El Salvador.

Pemex is the largest company in Mexico and operates through the whole chain of value of the oil industry, from exploration and production to industrial transformation, logistics and marketing. Explaining his role at the company, Jorge Kim Villatoro says, ‘my role as general counsel is not only to carry out the legal function as in any company. It involves advising the corporate and subsidiary companies and, where applicable, affiliate companies. I carry out the coordination of preventive strategies to avoid judicial, arbitration and administrative actions against Pemex and I also have to monitor the function of legal compliance’. Despite only joining Pemex in March 2016, Kim has already played a leading role on a number vital company projects. This includes leading on farm-out processes in Trion for US$1.97bn, Cárdenas Mora and Ogarrio for US$166m and US$373m respectively and Santuario whereby Pemex and Petrofac migrated the first exploration and production integral services agreement into an extraction contract executed with the National Hydrocarbons Commission. Internally, Kim has overseen a number of changes such as the design and implementation of Pemex’s new compliance program and the incorporation of a completely new set of rules following Mexico’s latest energy reform law. Explaining this further, Kim says: ‘The legal team has implemented a lot of important changes however; one of the most important changes has been the centralisation of functions within the general counsel’s office. Prior to the energy reform, the legal team was spread across many entities inside Pemex. With the reform we have been consolidated as an operational area with a corporative vision. Another important change that we are implementing is the Pemex renewal internal control. We make the legal framework that supports all the regulations on compliance. This impacts us positively because we want to be seen abroad as a solid, reliable and internationally competitive company’. Beyond large-scale transactions and internal restructurings, Kim is also credited with his ability to resolve litigations or disputes favourably. To this end, he guided the legal team on the Heerema case to recover 50% percent of Pemex’s expenditure in the relocation and installation of the PP-Ayatsil-A platform. He also helped end a 20-year-long dispute with the company COMMISA, obtaining important precedents after an intense litigation before the Supreme Court of Justice regarding environmental responsibility, which secured Pemex legally from wrongdoing caused by third parties. With such accomplishments achieved in just the last two years, it is clear to see why Kim is a standout candidate in Mexico’s in-house legal market.

One of the leading food, juice and beverage companies in Mexico, Jugos del Valle-Santa Clara produces and distributes some of the country’s most popular soft drinks. As part of Industria Mexicana de Coca-Cola, the company is characterised by having two distribution models: the centralised model that deals with the modern channel along with the traditional channel which is served by the Coca-Cola Bottlers System. In the position of general counsel José Lavin Castañeda is responsible for the corporate and operational legal function of the company, carrying out the legal strategies for the regulatory compliance of its production and distribution centres and the fulfilment of its internal policies regarding the contracting of services and supply of inputs. He contributes to the achievement of business objectives by handling contracts for the supply chain, marketing and commercial areas as well as overseeing the acquisition of companies and by managing permits and licenses for the operation and authorisation of infrastructure projects. Before joining Jugos del Valle-Santa Clara in 2016, Castañeda worked at Coca-Cola FEMSA for 18 years working in a number of senior legal positions. He graduated from Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León in 1992.

Jose Lechuga’s 15-plus years of experience working at prestigious multinational firms places him among the top in-house lawyers in his sector. Formerly with such blue-chip businesses as Carrier Mexico, Industrias AlEn and Mars Incorporated, Lechuga joined Navistar Mexico in 2006 as a legal manager. He has added to his responsibilities steadily since then, and was promoted in November 2017 to the position of legal, compliance and government relations director for all global affairs of the company outside of the US and Canada. Lechuga reflects on his efforts to build and establish the Navistar legal department from scratch upon joining as such: ‘When I joined Navistar, there was no legal department within the four business segments (manufacturing, truck, parts and Navistar Financial). That represented a challenge about understanding different needs and supporting the business to achieve success’. To increase the capabilities of the department, Lechuga quickly took steps to coordinate the function with the wider goals of the business. For him, building a team is ‘all related to setting expectations within members of the department and setting objectives that are aligned with the business objectives’. Though he says that this is ‘hard from a legal perspective, as the legal function cannot be measured in the same manner as other departments’, he states that alignment ‘allows the company to see the department as an important piece of the business puzzle’. A generalist by nature, Lechuga relishes the opportunity to get to grips with a varied workload throughout his career. ‘A particular highlight has been to not only be limited to legal work but also take on other responsibilities that complement the legal function such as compliance’, he explains.

Since entering the Mexican market in 1948, P&G has come a long way establishing a leadership position in the country by acquiring and opening a number of plants and a distribution centres in the country as well as introducing its numerous consumer product brands to the local market. Currently serving as general counsel of this operation, Haiko Ledesma joined P&G’s Mexico City office in 2003, where he initially served as a counsel for nearly five years. Ledesma’s former career at P&G, prior to assuming his present role in January 2015, also features a six-year stint in charge of the company’s Central America and Caribbean legal department. Equipped with vast experience in providing business-centric advice on legal and compliance issues across Latin America, Ledesma is, according to sources, the ideal person to lead P&G’s legal department in Mexico and help the company achieve its expansion and sustainability goals. Areas of praise in this year’s research include Ledesma’s expertise in antitrust, employment law and commercial litigation.

When Lourdes Maldonado assumed her current position of senior managing counsel for compliance in the Latin American and Caribbean businesses of Mastercard International, she successfully implemented a region-wide compliance programme and facilitated the growth of the local compliance function. ‘This represented a great opportunity to grow and take on new challenges personally and as a legal professional,’ she says. Maldonado further explains that, ‘In 2015, due to my temporary assignment in Middle East and Africa I was also able to bring the best practices between both regions’. At the same time, over the last several years, Maldonado has been credited for creating awareness of the program in an ever-growing and dynamic region. She adds, ‘I have been able to implement the compliance program from in a complex business environment and high-risk region. Taking advantage of my education and legal instruction in Mexico and the US, I have the capability to explain the nuisances of the region to the global teams and also to translate the global requirements to a Latin environment. I’ve been a “cultural and legal translator” between the two (global and Latin America). In other words, I’m a “local” but with international experience and understanding’. Prior to assuming her current role, Maldonado served briefly on a temporary assignment at Mastercard’s Canada office in 2011. ‘It was a completely different culture and the business challenge in a developed country forced me to be creative and to go outside my comfort zone to become the trusted advisor of the Canada management team’, she shares. ‘I helped the local team to launch the first “Priceless Cities” program ever in Canada and negotiated important agreements with banks and non-traditional players in the payments field’. Maldonado joined Mastercard in 2008 as the company’s first lawyer based in the Mexico City office and initially provided coverage to Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay and afterwards to Mexico and Central America. Previously Maldonado led the legal department at Oracle Mexico and was employed at law firms in Mexico.

Providing legal support on all areas of law to Medtronic’s entities in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America, legal director Patricio Márquez Macias significantly contributes in an executive position to the medical devices company on a number of projects. He coordinated the corporate transaction for Meditronic’s Mexican operation on the global acquisition of the Covidien business in 2015, a staggering US$42bn deal, which involved the transfer of three manufacturing facilities in Mexico, five operating companies, three dormant entities and over 4,000 employees. Since the acquisition, Márquez has had a very active role in participating in the Medical Devices Industry Association (AMID), participating in the creation of the first ethics code for the industry which regulates the relation with health care professionals by standardizing high ethical practices. Together with external lawyers he created the legal affairs committee whose main goal was to attack the problematic black-market of illegal commercialization of products in the industry: ‘We partnered with the regulatory authority (COFEPRIS) and reached several understandings on how to deal with this problem. For this, in 2018 I was elected to be the chair of the Legal Affairs Committee’, he explains. At Medtronic part of his day-to-day role entails ensuring the compliance of the company’s operations with Federal and State laws, interacting with healthcare professionals and health care organizations in the country, as well as lobbying before institutions related to AMID. Between the years 2007 and 2011, Márquez served as the corporate counsel for Mexico and Central America at Baxter, a standout time in his career marked by a number of awards and successful transactions. A few examples of his achievements there include his participation in the negotiation of fees with law firms, the reorganization of the legal department, the creation of centres of excellence and the drafting of contract templates. Most notably he implemented a highly successful cost-reduction strategy, which allowed Baxter to achieve savings of 75% off-budget. The success of this project was recognised by the corporation which made him eligible to receive the “Award for Appreciation” in 2008.

Since being featured in the GC Powerlist: Mexico in 2016, Edgar Martinez has continued to impress at Japan Tobacco International (JTI) México. His recent focus has mainly been on the domestic market owing to his involvement in a high stakes arbitration worth almost US$500m having a successful outcome for the company, as well as in the creation of JTI’s legal entity and preparations for the launching of new products in Colombia, a new market for the company. Derived from the termination of a joint venture agreement, in 2017 JTI took over the commercialisation of its Camel and Salem brands in Mexico. Martinez supervised all requirements allowing imports and commercialization. He has also worked on other minor litigations, such as a claim against the Tax Ministry for tax recovery, as well as challenge against a new obligation requiring the company to migrate to an electronic accounting system in an unfeasibly short period. On his time helping JTI launch its Camel and Winston brands in Colombia, Martinez says, ‘Taking advantage of my experience in starting-up operations in Mexico, the company entrusted me with the task of helping the company start-up operations in Colombia. We successfully launched two of our global brands during 2017. As a professional this has been also deeply enriching as I know the company, its processes, and now I was able to implement my experience while working with external counsel in Colombia’. Having set up and developed JTI’s legal function in Mexico since joining in 2012, Martinez ensures changes in processes and ways of working in the legal department are being implemented continuously to guarantee an efficient legal service. Such changes include constantly updating the contract management policy, marketing clearance processes and implementing an extremely efficient legislative monitoring tool that compare potential legislative developments in Mexico with that of other countries. Prior to JTI, Martinez spent over seven years at law firm Goodrich, Riquelme y Asociados. He graduated in law from Universidad Panamericana in 2004 and has a Master’s degree in international commercial arbitration law from Stockholm University.

Described by a nominating source as an individual with ‘a deep knowledge of transactional work’ who ‘has an unparalleled understanding of the business side’ of legal work, Juan Pablo Martínez transitioned from an extremely successful private practice career to take over the legal function of real estate investment company Artha Capital in October 2017 as legal director. Beginning his career at Santamarina y Steta, he became a partner at SAI Derecho & Economía during the course of over 18 years with the firm, during which time he amassed a wealth of experience in M&A, privat eequity funds, risk capital and administration matters. Artha Capital’s investment estate portfolio provides Martínez the ideal backdrop to again showcase why he is considered among the very best lawyers in his sector.

An experienced legal professional in the public sector Roberto Martinez Espinoza oversees the legal function at Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), a Mexican government company that generates, transmits, distributes and commercialises electric power for about 26.9 million customers. Over the last four years at the organisation Martinez, along with his team, have provided full legal support to the company’s existing 177 power plants, and have contributed to the installation of several thousand solar modules in small communities located far from large population centres. Martinez’s skills in managing individual projects and negotiating complex deals have been singled out by sources in this year’s research. Martinez was formerly employed as a general director of regulations to the Undersecretary of Hydrocarbons at the Secretariat of Energy and as a regional magistrate at the Mexican Electoral Court of the Federal Judicial Branch. His former career also features positions at Estrategia Solidaria Grupo Consultor and law firm Martínez Cruz y Asociados.

An outstanding senior in-house professional with an intricate knowledge of all applicable legal, corporate and regulatory affairs affecting Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma – the major Mexican brewery that is a subsidiary of HEINEKEN International – Marco Mascarúa is currently responsible for the oversight of all corporate and legal affairs in his capacity of vice president at the company. With over a decade of combined experience in the in-house legal department of the brewery, Mascarúa has undertaken a number of different roles since first joining in November 2003. After serving as an international legal manager for over three years, Mascarúa then worked at FEMSA between 2007 and 2010 in a similar role, furthering his knowledge of the intricacies of the beverages market. Returning to Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma in October 2010 as general counsel, he was responsible for the legal department’s operation which involved the management of a legal team of more than 70 attorneys in Mexico and participation in strategic transactions. In addition to his specialised in-house experience, Mascarúa can also point to an extensive academic background, holding an MBA from EGADE Business School in addition to his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.

US-headquartered multinational food and beverage corporation PepsiCo has had a presence in Mexico dating back to 1907. Francisco Merino’s association with the organisation began in 2004 and he now serves as general counsel and senior vice president legal and government affairs for Mexico, Central America, Caribbean and Andean countries. Covering such a wide geographical area, Merino works on multiple fronts concurrently with the help of the legal department which he has developed over the years. To this end, he has worked on a number of important projects and initiatives aimed at accelerating the growth of PepsiCo and its brands throughout the region. This includes helping launch the company’s sustainability agenda and the inauguration of a new distribution centre in San Martín. He also plays a vital role in overseeing the fulfilment of a deal to which PepsiCo agreed in 2016 to market, sell and distribute Starbucks products in Latin America. This will be crucial in the company’s strategy to pierce into the region’s ready-to-drink coffee and energy beverage market, which is worth an estimated US$4bn.

Founded in 1947, TELMEX (Teléfonos de México) is a leading communications company in Mexico with a long history of delivering products and services to the country. Having served the company since 1999, director of regulatory and legal affairs Francisco Javier Mondragón Alarcón has a comprehensive understanding of the company’s operations and is completely aligned to its goals. He is credited with having played a key role in ensuring América Móvil’s US$21bn acquisition of TELMEX in 2010 was not only approved by the CFC (Comisión Federal de Competencia) Antitrust Office but also seamlessly implemented. Since that landmark deal, Mondragón impressed peers further by safeguarding the company against disputes as well as overseeing all of TELMEX’s commercial deals – he recently oversaw the signing of a cooperation agreement between the company’s Scitum business and the Federal Police on cybersecurity to contribute to the safe use of internet services in Mexico.

Formerly an extremely successful and highly-respected external counsel for Creel, García-Cuellar, Aiza y Enríquez and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, Juan Salvador Nito Irigoyen took on his first general counsel role with RSA Seguros (currently SURA Seguros) before moving on to a Washington DC-based role with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Notwithstanding that Juan was extremely pleased with this position, which involved a highly competitive selection process against lawyers from all regions of the world, he jumped at the chance to join AlphaCredit when this opportunity became available in 2014, saying: ‘IDB was a great experience, however when I received the invitation to work at AlphaCredit and be part of a start-up in the finance sector it was hard to say no’. His decision proved to be a prescient one, and his time at the company has been incredibly successful. ‘Since I’ve been at the company’, Juan says, ‘it has grown from 65 employees to more than 3,500, and we have become one of the top three players in our market’. He picks out AlphaCredit’s acquisitions of Total Credit and Grupo Finmart (Crediamigo) as personal career highlights due to him managing to achieve success in a new area: ‘Before working for AlphaCredit I didn’t have a lot of M&A experience; both acquisitions were very important milestones for the company, as well as important knowledge experiences for me’. As well as this, he lists AlphaCredit’s issuance of US$300m international notes under Rule 144A Regulation S as a project he particularly enjoyed. ‘In this transaction I had the opportunity to be part of the company’s roadshow team’, he explains. Completed in eight weeks, a very short time frame for a first issuer, it was an extremely well-executed transaction by him and his legal department.

With approximately two decades of experience in the financial services sector, including at such well-regarded global financial powerhouses as Deutsche Bank, ING and GE Capital, Isabel Ocaña Ruiz de Velasco is one of Mexico’s leading in-house lawyers in the sector. Now general counsel and chief compliance officer of Engenium Capital, she reflects on a highly rewarding but challenging career: ‘Over the years, I have been fortunate to be part of great companies during hectic (and critical) times. I honestly believe that crisis are also great opportunities to grow, to learn, and to change’. As an example, she recalls working in the industry during the global financial crisis 10 years ago: ‘During my tenure as general counsel for ING Investment Management, I had to face the 2008 crisis. The management team had to take difficult decisions in a time where we were uncertain about the future. 2008 and 2009 were, with no doubt, the years in which I learned how to really work under pressure. This was by far the best school in which to practice soft skills such as managing under pressure, creativity, adaptability, and problem solving’. She has deployed her ample abilities with great skill since taking on her current role with Engenium Capital in 2016, especially in regards to the major restructure that the company has undergone. ‘The legal team has been completely reorganised over the past two years’, she explains. ‘Until March 2016 our company was GE Capital Mexico, a subsidiary of General Electric (GE) and, at that time, the current responsibilities of the legal and compliance team were divided between three areas: legal, compliance and financial crime compliance. We had to consolidate the abovementioned functions, reassigning responsibilities and learning to work together as one team, while supporting a growing business and several initiatives to improve our technological platform. What was previously covered by 15 people at two centres of excellence is now performed completely by 12 people’. Ocaña’s proven ability to succeed in the highest-pressure environments, along with her technical skill in the financial sector and organisational nous show her to be a fantastic general counsel who is a credit to her company.

Carlos Ortiz Mena joined Mexican-based precious metals mining business Fresnillo as a legal manager in 2001, when the company was still a wholly owned operating division of Industrias Peñoles. Since then Ortiz has been an integral part of important milestones for the company, such as its spin-off on the London Stock Exchange in a 2008 IPO, as well as its secondary listing on the Mexican Stock Exchange. Having impressed with his involvement on these transactions, which included coordination between in-house, external advisors and senior management, Ortiz was promoted to the position of head of legal. In his current role Ortiz coordinates a team of lawyers and has focused his efforts on collaboration and partnership with business units. Ortiz and his team support the full scope of Fresnillo’s operations in Mexico, which include three gold and silver mines in the country, as well as a number of active exploration projects. Ortiz also reports directly to the CEO and is credited for working with internal and external teams to achieve the highest levels of corporate governance.

WeWork is an American company which provides shared workspaces, technology start-up subculture communities and various services for entrepreneurs and start-up businesses and enterprises. Serving as Mexico’s WeWork’s regional general counsel, Jaime Orvañanos has guided the innovative company to navigate in the Mexico and LATAM region. The company has created a new nature of services offered to the market, it is here where Orvañanos has done a ‘marvellous’ job in implementing innovative structures for old formulas. He previously worked as chief legal counsel at OfficeMax Mexico where he headed the legal department as well as real estate development, including the negotiation of a franchise for a new retail store. He also had a spell at Walmart de Mexico y Centroamerica after having completed an LLM in 2007, where he started as a legal manager at Banco Walmart (Walmart´s first Bank), focused in banking and finance matters participating actively in the opening of the bank. Then he was transferred to Walmart's corporate headquarters where he was promoted to senior legal manager in September 2010 and eventually assuming the position of legal corporate and contracts assistant director in May 2012. During this time he participated in Walmart’s sustainability projects and assisted on corporate, FCPA, commercial and banking matters, including the sale of Walmart's restaurant division to Grupo Alsea in 2014.  Before Walmart Orvañanos worked at law firm Baker McKenzie in Mexico City focused on labour and social security matters. He also has been a professor of Employment and Corporate at private university Universidad Iberoamericana.

Founded in 1890, major Mexican brewery Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma exists today as a subsidiary of HEINEKEN International after the Dutch brewer acquired the company in 2010 from FEMSA. Alberto Paez had been counsel at FEMSA for 10 years prior to the landmark deal and after assisting with its full implementation, he joined Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma in 2011 as international legal manager and operations. In under four years in the role, Paez implemented HEINEKEN’s global office strategies, the Code of Business Conduct, obtained approvals from the Ministry of Health for various advertising campaigns and reviewed and negotiated the company’s sponsorship deals. Paez had a brief spell as legal manager at Cotemar between 2014 and 2015, before returning to Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma in September 2015. Now as general counsel, he continues to the build on his excellent reputation in the company. Because of his efforts in obtaining approvals for advertising – notoriously challenging for beer makers – the company has won successive industry awards as “Advertiser of the year”. Paez also assisted on the entry of HEINEKEN Light in the country and continues to oversee a number sponsorship deals with Mexican football clubs. He obtained his law degree in 2000 from Tecnológico de Monterrey and has a Master’s degree from Duke University School of Law.

Mariana Páez Robles Martínez assumed her current position as general counsel in Eutelsat Americas, one of the world’s leading satellite operators, in 2014. Throughout her career she has flourished in the telecoms sector, spending 13 years in Telefónica México and as a consequence of working in large multinational companies, she has developed an extensive multidisciplinary skillset in regards to all matters surrounding the legal operation of the telecommunication industry. Additionally, the fast development of new technologies and transformation of the industry has required her to become an advocate for the innovation and creation of new rules to successfully face the challenges of the business with clear orientation to protect the legal framework in a highly competitive environment. Páez has achieved this successfully by proposing fast changing solutions tailored to the demands of the industry and the law required to develop with flexibility with sensitivity. She has been central to the focus on the day-to-day work regarding the structure of Eutelsat Americas and the governing bodies to lead an adequate corporate governance, compliance and client orientation. Along with the legal team, Páez has been closely involved in the process of acquiring three new satellites within the continent, carrying out the arrangements for their launch and supervising the legal requirements before and after they started operating commercially. These multimillion operations have been successfully concluded, and as a result Eutelsat successfully launched: Eutelsat 115 West B, which covers the Americas from Alaska to Patagonia. As well as Eutelsat 65 West A, designed to target fast-growing video and broadband markets across Latin America and Eutelsat 117 West B, a new-generation electric satellite in the Eutelsat Americas fleet.

SAP is the world’s largest business software company and has been operating in Mexico since 1994, and in 2014 the Mexican branch of the company appointed Christian Paredes to the position of general counsel. Paredes has been at SAP México since 2007, but having excelled in the positions of senior lawyer (until 2013) and then as legal manager between 2013 and 2014, he was quickly identified as the best candidate to lead the company’s legal department. One work stream that brought his skills to the forefront of the business’ mind was the sale of a line of business in 2010 which had the complexity of negotiating the terms and conditions of the contract with the buyer and several logistic issues with different customers that were part of the agreement. Since taking his current role, Paredes has led on a number of vital projects. First, in 2016 he helped in the closing of the biggest deal in Latin America. ‘As it was a very sensitive issue, I took full control of the negotiation and another variable was that we were facing a public customer (government), hence the correct analysis and the correct words were the difference. This deal made me more analytic and allowed me to have a very complex situation under control and close the deal by the end of the day’, he explains. The following year he was instrumental in successfully defending members of the company’s C-suite in criminal proceedings. ‘This was a very complex issue because [it involved] someone’s liberty, not just possible economic damage it was covered by the media, the exposure increased but I was confident of our strategy from the beginning and finally the ruling confirmed [this]’, he says. Paredes also implemented an internal model for his legal department in 2017. Explaining the new system, he comments, ‘each member of my team has to be in charge of one internal customer, i.e. each lawyer would need to know, in a 360 degree level, a specific customer and this new support model helped my team to close big deals during 2017 and give strategic recommendations to the account executives’. With the aforementioned achievements under his belt, it is easy to understand why SAP’s hierarchy were eager to promote Parades to his current position and retain his services for over a decade.

Grupo Pisa manufactures and distributes pharmaceutical products and medical and health devices to private and public sectors in Mexico, Latin America and internationally. Juan Pablo Patiño Riosferrer leads the legal department. Initially he was not interested in pursuing a job as a corporate lawyer, while he was practising tax litigation and dispute resolution at the law firm Baker McKenzie in Guadalajara, Mexico. Soon after his career diverged and he started to focus on highly regulated industries such as telecommunications, tobacco, GMOs, as well as constitutional litigation. At this point he was an associate at the law firm Rios Ferrer Guillen Llarena Trevino & Rivera, in Mexico City. Subsequently, the firm Galicia Abogados recruited him, this was a time where he expanded his expertise and deepened his knowledge with respect to complex transactions and M&A. He was given the opportunity to be Grupo Pisa’s first general counsel in January 2015. Ever since he has had the opportunity to coordinate the company’s legal matters in Latin America as well as the US, learning from different judicial systems and customs and practices on how to do business. This role has given him the chance to amplify his expertise specifically in intellectual property, criminal matters and government procurement; areas which have profoundly moulded his career. Some of the most recent changes he’s made to the work of the legal department include the optimising of internal procedures in order to satisfy, in a more efficient manner, the demand coming from distinct areas and companies of the conglomerate. ‘Once we did that, I focused on my team of attorneys and engineers (specialised in patents), by seeking their growth and development on specific skills such as problem solving, promptitude and attitude towards business. We, in-house attorneys, need to be more business-oriented and less deal breakers’ says Patiño Riosferrer on his managerial approach.

Rodrigo Peña Duran has been described by a nominator as ‘one of the most experienced and knowledgeable lawyers in the spirits industry’, high and well-deserved praise given his record of achievement in the field. Peña is legal director Latin America and the Caribbean for Bacardí y Compañía, a famous brand that operates in the highly regulated spirits industry. The wide-ranging role requires him to have immense knowledge of laws relating to spirit production in a number of jurisdictions, cultures and societies. Demonstrating his value to the company, Peña worked on Bacardi’s 2018 acquisition of Patrón Tequila for more than US$5bn.

ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions is one of the world’s leading companies in the field of engineering, construction and service of all industrial plants and systems. In Mexico, with over 40 year’s local presence in the chemical, petrochemical, cement, mining and automotive industries, it has 500 employees and an engineering capacity of more than 800,000 hours a year. A central part of its workforce is director legal and senior legal counsel, Rodrigo Pérez Elizundia who has had significant involvement in several important dispute resolution cases and the corporate restructuring of the different companies which derived in ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions México. ‘Through these experiences I have had the opportunity to get in touch with some relevant aspects of the in-house functions including corporate, contracts, negotiations and disputes’, says Pérez Elizundia. Part of his work is dedicated to company legal affairs involving Germany, North and South America. Pérez Elizundia is also part of the international team of lawyers of ThyssenKrupp; when a transaction or case so requires he teams up with other lawyers from the international team to facilitate transnational deals.

Recognised for his non-linear way of thinking and strong analytical and negotiation skills, Daniel Perez-Cirera Santacruz has been at the heart of the launch and implementation of Samsung Electronics’ new business and channels in Mexico. In his short three year stint with the company he has led and orchestrated the launch of Samsung Pay, which is a first of its kind mobile payment platform in Mexico that is quickly becoming ubiquitous, an Employee Purchase Program, which will soon evolve to a full blown online novel channel for the Korean Chaebol in Mexico, and the first ever Samsung Flagship Store located in the posh Santa Fe Shopping Center. Irrespective of these striking achievements, the road to innovation and trailblazing transactions is still a long one ahead for Perez-Cirera as Samsung has partnered up with America Movil (one of the largest operators in the world) to launch, within the first semester of 2018, its Internet of Things or Hyper-connectivity platform, which will be the first of its kind in Latin America, and will forever impact the way we live and perceive smart or intelligent ecosystems. Other notable achievement during Perez-Cirera’s term as legal, compliance and government affairs director include successfully handling of sensitive mediations with service provider, a material reduction of the number of labour law suits as well as customer complaints through the implementation of novel negotiation and settlement techniques, in fact, Samsung has not lost a single law suit under his watchful eye. In 2017 Samsung spun-off its printer division to Hewlett Packard, transaction that was swiftly handled by his small, but highly efficient, legal team of six attorneys and non-attorneys. Prior to his current role, Perez-Cirera served as the company’s Mexico general counsel and chief compliance officer for over a year. Perez-Cirera’s career also features general counsel roles at Ingersoll Rand in Mexico and Central America and Nokia in Mexico, as well as positions in prestigious law firms across Mexico and the US.

Volaris, also known as Concesionaria Vuela Compañía de Aviación, is a Mexican low-cost airline based in Mexico City. It is the country’s second largest airline and serves domestic and international destinations within the Americas. Among their leading personnel is Jaime Esteban Pous Fernandez who has served as the chief legal officer since 2013. Pous has been central to the organisation’s growth, which includes negotiating deals to increase Volaris’ routes from five to more than 140 destinations and its fleet from four to 57 aircrafts. Some of his recent work involves talks with Southwest Airlines on behalf of Volaris Costa Rica’s application for permits to start US flights. Prior to his role at Volaris, Pous was legal director at Grupo Televisa for over 13 years and before that enjoyed a three-year spell in private practice. Pous holds a law degree from the Tecnolgico Autnomo de Mexico (ITAM) and obtained his LLM from the University of Texas in 1996.

Distinguished by her negotiation and analytical skills, as well as her ‘out of the box’ thinking, Fernando Ramo boasts 20 years of leading growth initiatives across highly regulated and competitive environments. Hired by Amazon in April 2015 to navigate the Mexican legal function of the company, Ramo works alongside the senior management structure to develop successful corporate strategies in the region. ‘Working closely with the different businesses I support has made me a better and more practical lawyer’, Ramo says. ‘Working in-house is a challenge that you either love or you hate; there is no in between. You become more of a problem solver rather than a lawyer’. Prior to joining Amazon, Ramo worked in the telecommunications sector, initially as general counsel at Satmex (2012 to 2014), and later as general counsel and regulatory affairs head at Maxcom Telecomunicaciones (2014 to 2015). Prior to that Ramo worked in corporate, M&A and project finance matters at various law firms in Mexico and New York City.

Upon starting his in-house legal career as a litigation counsel at Siemens México, Eduardo Ramos Valdivia was presented with the challenging task of participating in the transformation of the legal department. Due to a turnaround in the company’s compliance culture at the time, the department was undergoing a complete change in staff. ‘I had to focus on changing the image of a litigator from that of a mere problem solver, or even a “problem maker”, to a more preventive role, with a strong focus on claims management’. Ramos states. ‘It’s amazing to see how colleagues, who once looked at me and thought “here comes the trouble maker”, now approach me for advice on how to handle a claim in a project in the best manner to avoid disputes. This makes you feel truly part of the business and you know for sure that you are meeting the expectations of the company’. After spending five years in this position, Ramos received the opportunity to combine his dispute resolution role with that of a commercial counsel supporting two distinct divisions (Digital Factory & Process Industries and Drives). During his over-six-year tenure at Siemens Ramos has made a good impression with his conduct on various important cases such as a recent multibillion dollar arbitration involving a large state-owned company that was also an important client at the time. ‘The situation implied that we need to balance the expectations of the business with maintaining a good business relation with our customer. Furthermore, we had a consortium partner that was also part of the dispute, so any agreement had to meet the expectations of all parties’, Ramos explains. ‘Eventually and after over a year of intense negotiations we came with a settlement option that satisfied all three sides. For me the lesson learned was that one of the most relevant roles for any in-house counsel is to find solutions that allows the business to keep going and not only to be right from the from the legal stand point’. Other recent achievements from the last three years include Ramos’ defence of a contract awarded by a state-owned utility company with a value of US$45m, as well as his implementation of terms and conditions on the platform for Internet of Things (IoT) solutions which is one of the cornerstones of Siemens’ digitalisation strategy.

Over her long career in the legal profession Carla Revilla has accumulated substantial experience under diverse legislation, resulting in an almost unrivalled knowledge of Latin-American deals and their legal requirements. Described by colleagues as an ‘excellent professional’ and a ‘highly dedicated individual with a thorough and profound legal knowledge’, Revilla has consistently exceeded expectations in various in-house positions, displaying exceptional attention to detail, broad perspective and long-term view on the impact of decisions. Prior to assuming her current role of general counsel at the leading Mexican fashion and apparel company Grupo Axo Revilla spent a considerable amount of time overseeing legal processes at large hospitality and tourism businesses in the country, including Royal Holiday and Wyndham Worldwide. Revilla’s achievements over her nearly four-year tenure at Grupo Axo are plentiful. In particular she played a key role on the sale of a minority stake in Grupo Axo by parent Alsea to private equity firm General Atlantic for US$55m in 2017.

‘He is a real estate expert, has great common sense for business, and knows how to make outside counsel go the extra-mile’: such is the verdict of a nominating source on the myriad capabilities held by Mariano Riva Palacio. He is currently vice president corporate counsel for Mexico at Prologis, a leading global provider of efficient logistics real estate solutions. Palacio’s career began in 2005, and since the turn of the current decade his in-house roles have included stints with Grupo GICSA and Jinko Solar before taking on his current position with Prologis in October 2016. Palacio’s enviable experience in project finance and real estate is bolstered by his deep appreciation of supply chain and other business operations, which combine to make him an ideal in-house counsel. He is able not only to provide specific legal advice to challenges which present themselves, but also to contribute valuable commercial insight to Prologis’ sprawling industrial real estate operations.

Senior counsel for Mexico at the world’s third largest premium spirits company Beam Suntory Juan Alberto Rivera Bueno has consistently impressed with his work on important cases. Most recently he has spent almost 18 months setting up the company’s distribution entity in Mexico, which required him and his team to manage multiple tasks concurrently as they had to set up a dormant company and file for permits and licenses to import alcohol. ‘Additionally, we also set up a new payroll company and negotiated all kinds of agreements for setting up two new offices in Mexico and Guadalajara. All the above within a strict timeline as our distribution agreement was set to expire early than anticipated’. Additionally; he has advised on Agave and Tequila purchase transactions worth several million dollars and enabling his employer to secure the company’s product stock by defending the company against breach of agreement claims from Agave sellers in the region. Rivera has also made a positive impression with his organisational achievements, namely transforming the way files are kept so they are available at any time and also being able to overview the hundreds of Agave-related agreements that the company execute each year ‘This helps us to provide effective service even when not physically at the same location of our internal clients’, he explains. ‘We have also changed the way we prioritise and process work for all areas of the company; we try to always assess the real need of what we are being asked to do so we have a clear idea of how helping someone before another might impact the business’. During his time at his former employer, the bakery ingredients business AB Mauri, Rivera received acclaim for his contribution to the construction of one of the most modern yeast plants in the world. He says: ‘I could manage agreements and legal relationships with more than 50 vendors and were part of the team that was able to finish the project in record time. This complex project included the installation of electrical infrastructure that was set up in a way that could be used in the future by the surrounding communities’. Rivera worked at law firms in Mexico City between 2006 and 2012 and also had in-house spells at Monsanto 2004 to 2006) and YUM! (2002 to 2004). He was executive vice president of FISAC and NGO that works against abuse of alcohol between 2015 and 2016 and sat as first vice president of the National Tequila Chamber from 2015 to early 2018. He currently sits on the board of both the Tequila Chamber and the Tequila Regulatory Council where he works closely with other stakeholders defending the industry’s interests on various fronts including the renegotiation of NAFTA where he has been a member of the Mexican Stakeholders’ group.

Juan Luis Rodríguez Rivero has an almost unparalleled knowledge of the IT market in Latin America and Accenture’s method of business, having been engaged as an in-house lawyer with them since 2004, prior to which he was a corporate lawyer for Kuri Breña Sánchez Ugarte, Corcuera y Aznar. He was the first in-house counsel in Mexico for the company, and was legal director for the country for many years. In 2013 he was appointed as director of legal services for Hispanic Latin America, and since then he advises that he has ‘been involved in cutting edge technology transactions with large clients all throughout the region’. He can take immense credit for constructing a first-class legal function at the company, with the team now numbering 13 attorneys in the region who have a ‘collaborative culture along with a spirit of putting the company and team before the individual’. A forward-thinking lawyer with a deep interest in new techniques that can improve his department, Rodríguez lists being afforded the ability to innovate as being among his personal career highlights: ‘Having the opportunity as an attorney to shape and influence the market by bringing the most advanced technology, cutting-edge methodologies, know-how and best practices to the clients in our region has been a great highlight’. He also lists the ability ‘to interact with multi-cultural, multi country clients’ through Accenture as another positive feature of his career thus far, and mentions that this has made him ‘understand and attend to the specific needs of not only the client, but negotiators from many nationalities, desires and cultures’. The team has undergone a significant restructuring in recent years which it has handled extremely effectively, as Rodríguez explains: ‘The Accenture legal team experienced a full transformation a few years back whereby a team was created to take care of compliance, regulatory and HR matters, another for client relationships and client contract negotiations, and a legal shared services centre was created in Argentina which now holds more than 200 lawyers who give legal support worldwide. Accenture’s global legal leadership commended us for a great implementation of the model, and held the team up as an exemplar of how things should work within the global legal team’.

Prior to his current role, Rafael Rodríguez Sánchez was an in-house lawyer for Iusacell, where he operated for almost a decade; he finished in the position of legal advisor for corporate regulatory and special projects and proved his versatile capabilities on a number of occasions. In 2013, he moved to TV Azteca and now manages the company’s legal function in the position of legal director. In this role he recently worked on the sale of Azteca America to HC2 Network as part of the company’s strategic purpose of focusing on solid core operations in Mexico whilst maximising profitability abroad. A well-regarded and highly capable legal professional, Rodríguez was also a successful private practice lawyer before deciding to move in-house having a notable career as a corporate lawyer for PwC.

Eduardo Rojas Crespo is highly capable, with over 25 years of experience as an in-house lawyer, 24 of which have been as general counsel. From 1994 to 2004 he was general counsel at Empresas Fimex, and from 2004 to present he has been general counsel and secretary of the board of directors at the major poultry producer Industrias Bachoco. Rojas credits his rise to ‘understanding the company, keeping updated on all the matters that affect it and focusing strongly on preventative and compliance aspects’. This approach has also helped him achieve his four main general objectives at Industrias Bachoco, which Rojas explains as the following: ‘That the company’s operations are properly legally protected, that the legal implications for any project are always previously analysed, that litigation has favourable results for the company, and that value is given to the Group by ensuring it always works on a solid legal basis while meeting all regulatory compliance’. This goes some way to explaining the extended record of success he has achieved throughout his career. As for how he handles the legal function at Industrias Bachoco, Rojas prizes ‘direct involvement with internal and external staff, as well as optimal collaboration with the board of directors’, alongside an overall ‘focus on prevention and active involvement in the critical projects of the company’. Rojas advises that the legal area of the company is ‘consulted in a preventive manner in all aspects of the business and is asked to train all company personnel in matters of mandatory compliance, under the principle that compliance reduces unnecessary costs and contingencies’, a development which has had huge benefits to the security of Industrias Bachoco. Recently, Rojas has had a key role to play on a number of important transactions for the company, including the acquisition of a number of company and infrastructure assets in the US and Mexico.

A lawyer with more than 15 years of experience, Sergio Romero has vast expertise in civil, commercial, financial and labour litigation, as well as unrivalled skills in structuring business and government financing, whilst performing within the corporate, contractual and consulting areas. Hired by Uber in December 2015, Sergio Romero currently serves as a legal director for litigation, labour and employment in the Latin American region, and is a main point of contact for senior level management when dealing with local legal and compliance issues. He formerly served as legal chief at Metlife in Mexico, where he was directly responsible for providing advice and legal support to the company’s regional operation, working on corporate and contracts, bids and risk management in dealing with litigation. Besides overseeing legal support for the Mexican business of the company, Romero also conducted evaluation and analysis of contingencies derived from litigations in countries across Latin America, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay. Romero’s former career also features a legal director position at Banco Mercantil del Norte, as well as an associate attorney role within the firm Cervantes Sainz Abogados.

Since its foundation in 1994, Banco del Bajío has transitioned from being a niche bank to one with national coverage offering a full range of banking products and services. Having joined the company in 1999 as manager of contracts, current legal director for the business division Rafael Octavio Romo Aguiñaga has guided the company from a legal standpoint for most of its existence. Reflecting on the major challenges that the bank has confronted over the past 20 years, Romo says, ‘the changes in applicable legislation, competition, globalisation and the use of information technologies in bank transactions’ have all been prevalent. These changes have ‘obligated the legal areas of the bank to consistently stay updated and attentive to those changes in order to meet all requirements for the banking sector’. In particular, Romo ensures his department work towards standardising contracts for credit, fixing legal criteria and establishing direct communication with all areas of the business and, on occasion, facilitate the closing of operations and take care of any legal risks that may exist in banking transactions. In 2017 Banco del Bajío was the first company in the State of Guanajuato to offer an IPO on the Mexican Securities Market. Romo’s management of his legal department ensured the additional responsibilities of transparency, social responsibility, corporate governance and a stricter code of conduct that is imposed were met to the highest standards possible. Grateful for his position, Romo says, ‘Banco del Bajio has been an environment that has enabled me to grow both personally and professionally, without sacrificing the quality of my life’. Before joining the bank, Romo had a successful legal career in the public sector: he was a legal assessor of Congress for the State of Guanajuato between 1997 and 1999, and before that was director of the Legal Municipality of Guanajuato for two years. He graduated in law in 1994 from the University of Guanajuato, an institution he has been teaching law classes at since 1996.

As a leading specialised financial and commercial services company in Latin America and the largest provider of short-term non-banking loans in the US, Grupo Elektra is one Mexico’s most successful domestic companies. Positioned in close proximity to senior management, general legal director Gabriel Alfonso Roqueñí Rello oversees a large legal function that provides support to the company’s commercial and financial divisions. Having joined Grupo Elektra in 1990, Roqueñí has held important positions such as legal manager, legal director, general operative director, and general director of marketing, and has made meaningful contributions to the Group’s regional growth and development. Most recently, Roqueñí has impressed with his contribution to the organisation’s digital transformation strategy, which has resulted in the launch of a new online shopping portal. The website marks the beginning of Grupo Elektra’s Omni-channel strategy in Mexico, which includes a new exclusive distribution centre for e-commerce, as well as more than 1,100 stores. Prior to joining Grupo Electra, Roqueñí worked at Avon Cosmetics. He obtained his law degree in 1985 from the Universidad Panamericana and a Master’s degree in Business Management from the Pan American Institute of Senior Business Management (IPADE) in 1999.

With more than 17 years of experience as general counsel for real estate companies, Claudia Rosso Rizo is a respected and admired in-house legal expert. Her years as a real estate lawyer for Canadian based Reichmann International (2001 to 2012) fine-tuned her skills as she implemented all related transactions for the company. In spring 2012, Rosso joined Abilia, one of Mexico’s largest, most experienced and reliable real estate developers. As general counsel she made key changes to ensure Abilia’s continued success – ‘I restructured the legal team by bringing in skilled lawyers to work on the day-to-day transactions and by establishing guidelines and methods to be implemented on all projects. As a result we now have a creative and high performing legal team in all of our deals and transactions’. Rosso plays a key role in the company’s most important transactions, as witnessed by her legal leadership on the sale of a two tower office building complex, commercially known as Terret – which was the largest single asset transaction in Mexico during 2014 – and the sale in 2017 of a retail centre to a Public REIT. Rosso has also contributed to Abilia’s international expansion, by working on acquisitions of a number of performing assets in various parts of the US, including a joint venture of a multifamily fund. Before her time at Abilia and Reichmann, Rosso was a junior lawyer working at García Barragán. On her career highlights there she says, ‘the finance restructure of one of the main Mexican Airlines and after that working on the splitting and re-structure of one of the main real estate companies definitely moulded me as a lawyer’.

Amongst the top 10 largest domestic companies operating in the Mexican economy, Arca Continental is a beverage manufacturing and distribution company under licence from the Coca-Cola Company and currently stands as the third largest Coca-Cola bottler in the world. Presiding over the company’s most senior legal position, Jaime Sánchez Fernández – in his capacity of chief legal officer – has achieved industry-wide recognition for his part in the legal team’s recent accomplishments. He was instrumental to the 2016 agreement that saw Coca-Cola bring Arca Continental into the US to be its exclusive bottler in the southwest region of the country, covering Texas and parts of Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arkansas – operating nine production plants in total. This saw the Arca Continental legal team recognised in the GC Powerlist: Mexico Teams in 2016, and proved to be one of the defining transactions in the company’s history. He served for eight years at Grupo Alfa as a corporate counsel and also practiced law independently. Sánchez has a Bachelor’s degree in law from Universidad de Monterrey and a Master’s degree in law from Michigan University.

Gerardo Sepulveda is described by nominators as a ‘unique’ type of lawyer who is ‘innovative and always finding a way to get the job done’. Currently serving as the leading lawyer for the financial division of IBM Mexico, Sepulveda brings his 10 year experience and knowledge of working as an M&A associate at a national law firm for many years. His deep understanding of financials and business allow him to consistently add value to IBM by using his legal knowledge to structure complex deals around the business interests of the company. Early on in his in-house career he was offered a position as senior counsel for the Latin America region of Gemalto, a French technology company, where he was responsible for the legal strategy and agreements behind all operations of the telecom, banking and government business units of the company in Latin America. During his tenure there he worked on various large-scale deals, including the restructuring and incorporation of a major division of a multinational bank worth over US$500m. ‘During this deal, I was impressed by his out-of-the-box thinking and his innovative solutions to ordinary legal obstacles. He understood the law, but most importantly he understood its inevitable interconnection with the business,’ states a former colleague. Sepulveda impresses peers by always being one step ahead of the curve, having all corners of deals covered from a legal and business standpoint. ‘I am confident that his problem solving in legal matters make him one of the most promising in-house lawyers in Mexico today’, says one nominator.

Alberto Sepúlveda was a partner with White & Case prior to working with Walmart de México y Centroamérica, which is emblematic of both of his immense technical legal skill and ability to operate in high-pressure situations at the top of the legal profession. Upon joining Walmart in 2013, he was dealing with a commensurate level of responsibilities from the get-go, being installed as general director of legal and institutional affairs for the company’s operations across Mexico and Central America. In addition to legal matters, Sepúlveda deals with the company’s ethical, corporate affairs, business development and asset protection areas, indicating his vast importance to the company as well as the esteem in which his abilities are held by Walmart.

José Luis Soberanes Torres assumed his current position as vice president legal in March 2017 and has since refined his legal corporate experience in the retail sector to bolster his already strong reputation as a highly respected in-house lawyer in Mexico. As the legal lead for MIRA, a fully-integrated real estate investment and development platform focused on commercial and residential assets in Mexico, Soberanes has been invaluable on a number of strategic purchases for the company. Prior to this role he served as vice president - Mexico counsel for Prologis, a multinational logistics real estate investment trust, formed through the merger of AMB Property Corporation and ProLogis. Some of his other roles also include serving as an international lawyer for Coca-Cola FEMSA and a lawyer for Mexican state owned petroleum company, PEMEX.

‘The need for involvement in all aspects of the company has allowed me to get a broader and better understanding of the industry, the company and the needs of both internal and external clients’, says Edgar Trueba Paz y Puente, executive director of Morgan Stanley México. In his capacity as head of the legal department since 2012 and secretary of the board of directors of Morgan Stanley México, he is responsible of legal and regulatory coverage for all business units and support functions, with emphasis on the legal aspects of investment banking and sales and trading. He names two important changes he has made to the workings of his legal department during this time, stating the ‘client focus approach’ and the ‘streamlining of the corporate governance structure’ have helped in achieving the business’ goals. Moulding the team according to values that are ‘acting with the utmost integrity and professionalism, approaching to our daily duties as owners and play a fundamental role in the successful design and completion of the company’s strategy in order to create long term value rather than following a more traditional limited advisory role’. Against the background of the dynamic financial services industry, which he states has been ‘subject to major legal and regulatory changes’ in recent years that have affected Morgan Stanley’s operations in the country and the role of the legal team which has experienced an ‘additional layer of complexity to the role [where it has been] a constant challenge to keep up to speed’. Having a key impact on the business’ bottom line and showing a predilection for innovation, Trueba was crucial in a number of securities offering transactions, some of which he explains were ‘the first ever in the local market’ including Fibra E asset class, a Mexican type of MLP and the company’s first IPO after a regulatory reform in 2017.

One of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer has been operating in Mexico for over 65 years. With over 1,500 employees in the country, Pfizer México helps its parent company in the development and release of innovative products that provide integral solutions to health problems affecting millions of people. Elena Vargas has been a legal manager of the company since 2012 and has received praised from a number of nominating sources for her performance in this role. During her time at Pfizer México she has earned credit from private practice nominators for working on a range of matters, including the implementation in Mexico of the parent company’s global acquisition of Baxter’s vaccines portfolio in 2014 for US$635m. Vargas has a Master’s degree in international legal studies from Georgetown University.

Founded in 1949, Gruma has developed into a food company with a leading position in the global market as a producer of corn flour and tortillas as well as other products. Demonstrating the size of this successful domestic business, it has operations in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania with 79 plants and a significant presence in 112 countries through its portfolio brands. Salvador Vargas Guajardo joined the company in 1996 and today occupies the most senior legal position within the organisation as corporate legal director. A vastly experienced in-house lawyer, Vargas assisted Gruma on its recent significant developments such as obtaining approvals from the US’s Food and Drug Administration for the addition of folic acid to corn flour with the objective of reducing spina bifida diseases in newborn children. He was also instrumental in the purchase of Azteca Foods Europe for €45m by Gruma’s Spanish subsidiary Gruma International Foods. Prior to Gruma, Vargas held a number of legal positions at Grupo Alfa, Protexa and Proeza. He also had spell in private practice as a senior partner at law firm Garza & Associates.

One of the most prominent and successful Mexican companies, Cemex relies upon a formidably qualified, experienced and knowledgeable executive management team to safeguard the fortunes of this multi-billion dollar cement operation. Ramiro Villarreal exemplifies the level of experience available to the top ranks of the company, having been employed by Cemex since 1987, initially as general counsel. In 1995 he added board secretarial responsibilities, with his current full title being executive vice president of legal and secretary of the board of directors; he is also a non-executive director of a number of other companies. Villarreal was employed by Grupo Financiero Banpais prior to joining Cemex, and was educated at the University of Wisconsin and The Autonomous University of Nuevo León.

Juan P. Visoso encompasses over 17 years of experience in private equity, finance and corporate law, primarily in M&As, banking and securities. Visoso joined Nexxus Capital in 2008 as general counsel and has since been actively involved in investments and divestments by the private equity funds managed by the organisation. Visoso also participated in the analysis of investment prospectuses and management of the firm’s portfolio companies, sitting in several boards’ portfolio companies. Upon joining Nexxus, Visoso concedes private equity was not a regulated industry, however with the introduction of a number of regulations as well as his ability to find solutions and negotiate skilfully, the internal department has established ‘robust and effective’ compliance policies. Visoso has additionally used his knowledge and experience in corporate governance issues to provide input on the institutionalisation process that Nexxus Capital has embarked on over the years. He has been involved in several M&As and IPOs, including the investment in Traxion, which is the result of the merger of different companies in the transportation and logistics industries in Mexico. As a result of such a transaction, the largest company in the industry was created and Visoso played a key role in refinancing it and conducting its IPO on the Mexican Stock Exchange before the first anniversary of the investment in Traxion. Prior to his time at Nexxus Capital, he served as a senior associate in the Mexico office of White & Case.

With approximately two decades of experience in the financial services sector, including at such well-regarded global financial powerhouses as Deutsche Bank, ING and GE Capital, Isabel Ocaña Ruiz de Velasco is one of Mexico’s leading in-house lawyers in the sector. Now general counsel and chief compliance officer of Engenium Capital, she reflects on a highly rewarding but challenging career: ‘Over the years, I have been fortunate to be part of great companies during hectic (and critical) times. I honestly believe that crisis are also great opportunities to grow, to learn, and to change’. As an example, she recalls working in the industry during the global financial crisis 10 years ago: ‘During my tenure as general counsel for ING Investment Management, I had to face the 2008 crisis. The management team had to take difficult decisions in a time where we were uncertain about the future. 2008 and 2009 were, with no doubt, the years in which I learned how to really work under pressure. This was by far the best school in which to practice soft skills such as managing under pressure, creativity, adaptability, and problem solving’. She has deployed her ample abilities with great skill since taking on her current role with Engenium Capital in 2016, especially in regards to the major restructure that the company has undergone. ‘The legal team has been completely reorganised over the past two years’, she explains. ‘Until March 2016 our company was GE Capital Mexico, a subsidiary of General Electric (GE) and, at that time, the current responsibilities of the legal and compliance team were divided between three areas: legal, compliance and financial crime compliance. We had to consolidate the abovementioned functions, reassigning responsibilities and learning to work together as one team, while supporting a growing business and several initiatives to improve our technological platform. What was previously covered by 15 people at two centres of excellence is now performed completely by 12 people’. Ocaña’s proven ability to succeed in the highest-pressure environments, along with her technical skill in the financial sector and organisational nous show her to be a fantastic general counsel who is a credit to her company.