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Mondelēz, the world’s second largest food company, has set an ambitious target to develop a completely sustainable global cocoa supply chain by 2020. A big focus of this Cocoa Life programme has been improving working conditions in Central America, particularly in the Dominican Republic. Juan Pablo Restrepo, chief legal counsel for Mondelēz throughout the region, has played a big part in overseeing these and other corporate and social responsibility initiatives. He has also acted on a number of M&As in the region recently and was credited with helping Mondelez exit Costa Rica earlier this year during its disposal of manufacturing facilities that produced the Gallito confectionary range. More broadly, he has optimised the external counsel service model for Central America, the Caribbean and the Andean countries. He reduced the number of firms that the company uses across these regions from 61 to just a single supplier. ‘This aggressive consolidation is allowing us to create scale, obtain better tariffs, simplify invoicing system and harmonise legal strategy in the entire region’, Restrepo says. He was also recognised in The Legal 500’s Colombia Powerlist earlier this year.