Career Biography

Teresa Minguez is Executive Legal Director & General Counsel at Porsche Ibérica and a governance leader with more than 25 years of international experience advising multinational organisations operating in highly regulated, transformation-driven and geopolitically complex environments. Throughout her career, she has combined legal excellence with a strong strategic vision, bringing an enterprise-wide perspective that integrates legal strategy, risk oversight, ESG governance, regulatory policy and corporate responsibility into executive and board-level decision-making.

In her current role, Teresa is a member of the Management Committee, where she contributes to corporate strategy, institutional positioning and organisational resilience within a global automotive group undergoing profound technological and regulatory transformation. She leads legal, compliance and governance functions with a focus on strengthening accountability frameworks, promoting ethical leadership and ensuring sustainable business growth in an evolving European and international landscape. Her work reflects a deep understanding of the intersection between governance, innovation and long-term value creation.

Before moving in-house, Teresa developed her career in leading international law firms, advising on complex cross-border M&A transactions and capital markets operations across European jurisdictions. This foundation provided her with strong technical expertise and a global outlook that continues to inform her approach to governance, regulatory strategy and institutional dialogue. Over time, she has become a recognised voice on the evolving role of General Counsel as strategic leaders contributing not only legal judgement but also business insight, reputational stewardship and forward-looking risk management.

Beyond her executive responsibilities, Teresa is actively engaged in the European legal community. She has served as Board Member of ACC Europe and Chaired its Membership Committee, where she supported initiatives aimed at strengthening professional collaboration and leadership development among in-house community.

She also holds International responsibility at the Madrid Bar Association, contributing to European legal dialogue and promoting cross-border engagement between legal institutions, businesses and policymakers.

Through these roles, she advocates for a modern, connected and influential in-house profession capable of responding to the challenges of digitalisation, sustainability and global regulatory change.

Recognised among the most influential General Counsel in the Iberian region, Teresa is a frequent speaker at international conferences and executive education programmes, addressing topics such as governance, enterprise risk, ESG oversight and the strategic transformation of the legal function. Her leadership approach is grounded in integrity, collaboration and institutional credibility, with a strong commitment to fostering inclusive leadership and empowering the next generation of European company lawyers.

From your perspective, what legal or business trends over the past 12 months have had the most tangible impact on your role? Are there specific regulatory developments, at Spanish or EU level, that you believe other in-house teams should be paying closer attention to?

Over the past twelve months, the most tangible shift has been the growing interconnection between regulation, geopolitics and business strategy. Legal teams are no longer dealing only with compliance requirements; we are increasingly asked to help organisations navigate regulatory complexity while maintaining strategic flexibility.

At EU level, several developments deserve particular attention from in-house teams. The expansion of sustainability and due diligence frameworks, the implementation of the AI Act and the increasing use of trade and industrial policy instruments are reshaping how companies assess regulatory risk across markets. These developments are also changing expectations around governance, transparency and accountability.

In Spain, the broader trend is the progressive Europeanisation of the regulatory environment. Many of the most consequential changes affecting businesses now originate at EU level, which requires legal teams to anticipate policy developments much earlier in the legislative cycle and translate them into practical business guidance.

For in-house counsel, this means moving from a reactive compliance role to a more strategic function that helps leadership understand regulatory direction and its potential impact on long-term decision-making.

AI has been taken seriously as a potentially revolutionary technological change in the legal world for a number of years now. Has it had a meaningful impact in how your legal team works in this time?

Artificial intelligence has started to influence the way legal teams operate, although its impact so far has been more evolutionary than revolutionary. The most immediate applications are in areas such as legal research, document analysis and knowledge management, where AI can significantly improve efficiency. However, the real transformation lies less in automation and more in how legal teams organise their work. AI tools require stronger governance frameworks, clearer internal policies and careful oversight to ensure that issues such as confidentiality, accountability and quality control are properly addressed.

For legal departments, the challenge is therefore twofold: integrating technological tools that improve productivity while maintaining the professional judgement and critical analysis that remain central to the legal profession. In that sense, AI should be seen as an enabler of better decision-making rather than a substitute for legal expertise.

Beyond your corporate responsibilities, is there a cause, within the legal profession or in wider society, that you are particularly passionate about? How does this influence your leadership style as general counsel?

Beyond my corporate responsibilities, I am particularly committed to initiatives that strengthen the role of the legal profession in promoting good governance, integrity and institutional trust.

Through my involvement in professional organisations (such as the Governing Body of the Madrid Bar Association) and academic initiatives, I try to contribute to conversations about how the legal function can evolve to meet the challenges of a more complex and interconnected world. This includes supporting the development of younger lawyers and encouraging a broader understanding of the role of in-house counsel as strategic partners within organisations.

This perspective also shapes my leadership style. I believe that legal teams are most effective when they combine technical excellence with intellectual curiosity, openness to new ideas and a strong sense of professional responsibility.