Legal team size: over 150

Victoria Meni Battaglia is Associate General Counsel, LATAM Product & South America Spanish at Airbnb. Victoria’s background includes operating in fast-paced legal departments supporting the business and managing efficiency and simplification of in-house legal departments for over 20 years. Victoria is experienced in multi-country environments with varied governing law schemes, having worked in LATAM, the United Kingdom and now in the US.

Prior to joining Airbnb, Victoria was Head of Legal at Target Group and Senior Legal Counsel at Hutchinson 3G in the UK. Previous to that, Victoria was Director, Legal Affairs, for South America at Dell Computers and Eastman Kodak Company, and Legal Manager for Wal-Mart and Carrefour in Argentina.

Victoria has an MBA degree, a Master’s degree in Business Law, a law degree, and attended diverse legal-related training sessions at Cambridge University.

Victoria is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the ACC Chapter in Argentina and a member of the Executive Committee at the South Florida Women In-House Counsel Group. Victoria was invited as a speaker to many international legal seminars in Europe, Latin America and the USA.

Victoria is married and has two children.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

I focus on prioritising effectively and being laser-focused on what helps the business grow; getting things done with the necessary hours of work, pace and passion, as periods of instability or crisis require us to go the extra mile and work as many hours as required because the company needs us; efficiently administering resources to be able to do more with less; continuing to adapt to the changing needs of younger generations in order to successfully retain talent; and maximising the use of AI.

What strategic priorities are guiding your legal team into 2026?

Support the business’ growth, enable international expansion, maximise the use of AI, and be laser-focused on efficiency in order to maximise the impact of our resources.