Team size: 34

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 believe it is essential to focus efforts on controllable management aspects: (i) optimising the team’s time for more strategic tasks, keeping them motivated with new challenges and relieving them from operational duties through increased use of technology; (ii) showing that moments of crisis and instability are opportunities to innovate, achieve more with less, and be more creative and collaborative.

I also see these moments as an opportunity to analyse risks more attentively. Given the company’s vulnerability during crises and/or instability, any negatively contributing factor can become potentially critical. This means that known risks must be managed, mitigated, or properly eliminated. In this context, the legal department plays a fundamental role in the process, as the ability to sensitively categorise and safely address these risks becomes even more essential. Furthermore, the legal team can actively promote awareness across other departments about the importance of risk management, effective lines of defence, and sound internal controls.

By ensuring the right technical skills and business knowledge, we contribute to effective risk forecasting and prevention. Legal professionals can identify potential risks by combining business insight with technical expertise. This proactive approach enables them to provide strategic guidance and mitigate or avoid risks during decision-making, helping to ensure the company’s long-term success.

In 2024, the legal department conducted an extensive root cause review that allowed us to consolidate all environmental impacts the company has faced into root cause groups of operational origin. We then reviewed all the controls and actions already addressed by the departments and led a major discussion around business priorities, budgeting, and ways to prevent new cases. The estimated value involved in these risks and consequences is US$28.5bn.

In terms of business strategy, we are actively involved in operational and strategic committees, from decisions on business priorities, strategies, and KPIs to implementation. We have a business plan that is closely tied to the company’s, with team and individual goals aligned to corporate objectives — including major mine expansion and production optimisation projects, where we are involved from regulatory and licensing strategy to service provider contracts and commissioning of new areas.

A practical example is the cost reduction drive recently prioritised by the company. The legal team launched projects to reduce litigation, aiming to minimise the impact of probable (provisioned) cases on the company’s EBITDA. We developed initiatives to eliminate root causes and adopted an aggressive policy of settlements and best practices (yielding savings of US$50mn). We reviewed 100% of our law firm contracts, reprioritised outsourced matters, and set bold targets for our partner firms.

I therefore understand that the legal function is essential to ensuring the company’s resilience — and this is necessary not only during periods of major crises and internal instability but on a continuous basis, since we live in a highly unstable world and resilience is a key attribute for the continuity and success of our business.

What are the major cases or transactions you have been involved in recently?

I was actively involved in the transaction between Anglo Brazil and Vale for the acquisition of the serpentine mining title (a US$750mn transaction), as well as in the sale of our nickel asset to MMG (US$500mn).

I also participated in the strategic planning and implementation of the agreement between Anglo and MPE for the resettlement of a community of 400 families in Conceição do Mato Dentro – estimated at US$200mn.

Additionally, I was involved in the joint venture with Codelco in Chile, which enabled Anglo to access the continuation of the copper ore body at the Los Bronces mine under a US$5bn agreement.

What emerging technologies do you see as having the most significant impact on the legal profession in the near future, and how do you stay updated on these developments?  

I couldn’t fail to mention artificial intelligence in this context. In our legal department, we already use several tools that incorporate AI to optimise our data capture and processing.

In my view, it is impossible to make good decisions without quality data and in-depth analysis of risks and the consequences of different alternatives – and this is precisely where technology comes into play. We have been testing various new tools and developing others in-house. Some examples include:

We already use virtual assistants to respond to client queries, whether through self-service FAQs or AI that learns from our database of answers. This has significantly reduced response time and freed up our team from dealing with frequently repeated questions, while also helping to organise our knowledge base and manage team workflows.

We have also adopted e-billing tools that allow us to control costs against our budgets, as well as RFP and e-auction tools for engaging law firms – as we believe cost control and resource optimisation will always remain a priority for legal departments.

Since one of my jurisdictions is Brazil – one of the countries with the highest volume of litigation in the world – in addition to a case management system, we have a specific platform that manages all workflows, data, and documents related to each of the over 1,700 litigation cases we handle. This platform provides end-to-end management, with a high degree of automation, simplification, and task/input tracking.

We are constantly testing solutions that could be relevant for our use cases, and we’re not afraid of testing things that may not work. That said, we’ve had success with interesting low-code solutions for process and task automation, AI tools for training and video content, and jurimetrics solutions that extract insights from our litigation portfolio directly from court websites.

We place special emphasis on selecting systems that function as work tools while generating data in the course of task execution, thus avoiding the need for separate data entry efforts. To achieve this, we ensure that these platforms are customised and configured to deliver accurate, relevant, and high-quality outputs — which also reduces the volume of data that needs post-processing.

How do you prioritise diversity and inclusion within your legal department, and what initiatives have you implemented to foster a more inclusive and equitable work environment? 

As an executive committed to the diversity agenda, I have led key initiatives to promote a more inclusive environment. We implemented a free support policy for employees who wish to change their name as transgender individuals, ensuring that everyone feels respected and recognised. In all our team meetings, we begin with Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) practices as the first item on the agenda, reinforcing the importance of this topic across all our work.

Additionally, we are actively seeking individuals from underrepresented groups to join our team, while also encouraging and supporting people with disabilities (PWDs) within our department, with the goal of creating equitable opportunities for all employees.