About

Gonzalo Braceras joined Banco Galicia, the largest local bank in Argentina in terms of both assets and customer base, in March 2016 from ICBC Argentina. In charge of a team of 30 employees, Braceras favours managing litigation on a ‘risk-based’ approach. ‘We try not to keep cases in our portfolio longer than necessary,’ Braceras explains. ‘In doing so, we were able to reduce 50% of the cases against Banco Galicia, being able to [generate] efficiencies in reserves and expenses’. This approach, alongside Braceras’ proactive efforts to establish a productive working relationship with senior management, has resulted in the inclusion of legal at the early stages of all projects that have a degree of regulatory impact. As in-house lawyers in Argentina are facing growing expectations to provide commercially-focussed advice, Braceras feels that it is imperative for them to be positioned closely to the business: ‘We need to learn how to interact with business associates with different backgrounds and adding value at the same time’.