Team size: Nine

In an increasingly complex global environment, how are you helping your organisation navigate risk while still supporting growth?

In an increasingly complex global environment, I focus on maintaining a disciplined, detail-oriented and pragmatic approach to risk management, without allowing urgency or pressure to compromise sound decision-making.

Paraguay’s growing economy creates constant opportunities, and as a business we must move quickly to capture them and deliver results to our shareholders. However, in my experience, operating under a mindset of constant pressure can become counterproductive and ultimately increase risk exposure.

My role is inherently transversal across the organisation: I work to ensure that growth initiatives are supported by robust legal frameworks, minimising risk while enabling the business to move forward with confidence. This means balancing speed with precision – while the business may need to launch ‘yesterday’, it is critical to ensure that products and services are not only legally sound but also aligned with high standards of quality and customer protection.

Ultimately, sustainable growth comes from building trust: trust from regulators, from customers and from stakeholders. By maintaining professionalism, attention to detail and composure under pressure, I help the organisation achieve a true win-win—driving commercial success while ensuring legal certainty and long-term value.

How has the role of General Counsel evolved in recent years, and where do you see GCs creating the most value today?

The role of the General Counsel has evolved significantly in recent years, particularly in markets like Paraguay, where it is gaining both credibility and strategic importance.

Historically, the GC was often perceived as a transactional intermediary – receiving queries from business units, outsourcing them to external counsel and relaying the response back. Today, that model has fundamentally shifted. The modern GC operates with a much higher degree of independence, relying on external firms primarily for highly specialised matters such as complex litigation.

More importantly, the GC is now recognised as a true business partner. Beyond legal and regulatory expertise, we are expected to understand the commercial objectives of the organisation and actively contribute to achieving them. Rather than being seen as a blocker, the GC plays a key role in enabling solutions, facilitating decision-making and shaping strategy.

This is where General Counsel create the most value today: by being embedded in the decision-making process, not just as risk managers, but as strategic advisers and, increasingly, as deal-makers. I have seen this shift first-hand, with more companies—both multinational and local—integrating in-house legal leaders into their executive teams, recognising them as essential drivers of sustainable growth rather than reactive problem-solvers.

How has AI changed the legal function recently (including in the past year), and how are you approaching it within your team?

AI has had a profound impact on the legal function, particularly over the past year, accelerating both efficiency and expectations around how legal teams operate.

At first, I approached AI with a degree of scepticism. My main concerns were around accuracy, over-reliance and the inherent risks of trusting a non-human tool in a field that requires precision and sound judgement. However, as technology evolved, I recognised that the real challenge was not whether to use AI, but how to use it responsibly and effectively.

This became even more evident within my team. I initially observed a tendency to rely too quickly on AI tools without sufficient independent analysis, which raised concerns around depth of legal reasoning and critical thinking. Rather than resisting this shift, I chose to address it by setting clear expectations and promoting best practices.

Today, our approach is structured around clear principles: we treat AI as a support tool rather than a substitute for legal judgement, we ensure that all outputs are carefully reviewed and validated, and we maintain strict confidentiality standards to protect sensitive information at all times. At organisational level, it is also critical to define which tools can be used and under what conditions. In our case, we have adopted secure, company-approved solutions such as Harvey AI, which allows us to leverage AI capabilities within a controlled and reliable environment.

Having gone through this transition, I now see AI as a valuable extension of the legal team—comparable to a junior or mid-level resource that enhances productivity and supports faster, more informed decision-making. The key, however, remains human oversight: AI adds significant value, but only when used with discipline, critical thinking and accountability.

What has been your most significant challenge as General Counsel in recent years, and what did you learn from it?

Beyond the constant challenge of keeping up with evolving legal and regulatory frameworks, I would say that my most significant challenge as General Counsel has been leadership – particularly managing and developing a growing team.

While the technical side of the law is intellectually demanding, I have come to realise that strong legal outcomes are not achieved without strong teams behind them. As the function grows, so does the complexity of leading people with different levels of experience, expectations and pressures.

For this reason, I place strong emphasis on continuously developing my leadership skills. I actively leverage the resources available within the organisation – such as leadership training and coaching, both for myself and for my team – to foster a supportive and high-performing environment. I believe it is essential to remain approachable and to ensure that the team knows I am there to support them, not only as professionals but also as individuals.

I may still be defining the type of leader I aspire to be, but I am very clear about what I do not want to be. That clarity challenges me daily to lead with empathy, professionalism and consistency. Given the demanding nature of our work, which requires both high intellectual performance and constant coordination, creating a healthy and collaborative environment is key to achieving sustainable results.