Career biography

José Miguel Arévalo Rengifo is the general counsel of Applaudo, an AI native nearshore digital solutions company operating across the United States and Latin America. A lawyer and notary admitted by the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador, he holds an LL.M. in Diplomacy and International Relations from the Diplomatic Academy ‘Dr. José Gustavo Guerrero’ and an LL.B. from the Escuela Superior de Economía y Negocios (ESEN). He completed international training in France at the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) on Ethics, Integrity, and Corruption Prevention, and previously served as the youngest-ever President of the Centro de Estudios Jurídicos (CEJ), one of El Salvador’s longest-standing legal associations, founded in 1963.

With over 13 years of experience operating across think tanks, law firms, academia, tech startups, civil society, and government, his cross-sector background functions as a competitive advantage, enabling him to bridge sectors and assess risk with the contextual intelligence that transactional counsel typically lacks. He has sat in the rooms where decisions get made and operates from a foundational premise: the best legal advice is the kind that unlocks the next move, not the one that stops it.

Arévalo Rengifo translates complex legal exposure into clear business decisions for high-performing executive teams navigating fast-moving regulatory and commercial environments. His practice spans compliance architecture, risk mitigation, and growth-enabling legal frameworks, consistently bridging the gap between legal constraint and strategic opportunity.

His value proposition is direct: protect downside, accelerate decision-making, and ensure that the legal function is a driver of enterprise value, not a bottleneck.

What are the most significant cases, projects, or transactions that you and your legal team have recently been involved in?

Our team provided end-to-end legal and contractual support for two highly complex, technology-driven initiatives in regulated and consumer-facing sectors, enabling secure deployment, risk allocation, and commercial scalability while maintaining strict stakeholder confidentiality.

In the public sector, we led the full legal and contractual structuring of a flagship Latin American initiative applying artificial intelligence to digital healthcare delivery. The engagement covered framework agreements, IP, data protection and cybersecurity positioning, regulatory alignment, and multi-party risk allocation for a platform enabling virtual consultations and monitoring, using AI as a core component. The project was designed to expand access to key public services and improve service quality, while ensuring compliance with public procurement rules, healthcare regulations, and AI governance standards.

In parallel, we supported the contract negotiation and legal structuring of a mobile digital platform for a major airline, designed to manage the full travel lifecycle through a single application. Our involvement encompassed commercial negotiation, IP and licensing terms, service levels, liability frameworks, and operational risk mitigation. The legal architecture enabled a faster, more secure, mobile-first customer experience while supporting the airline’s broader digital transformation objectives.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

My framework is built on four pillars: prospective analysis to anticipate the future through scenario forecasting, talent density, cross-functional communication, and AI-powered risk infrastructure, all deployed before problems materialise, not after.

We prepare for the worst without transmitting unnecessary alarm. The objective is to give leadership confidence and information to make informed decisions, not to generate institutional anxiety. That requires surrounding yourself with A-players: a high-performing legal team that can execute under pressure without constant oversight.

Structurally, we operate from a clear risk matrix and RACI at all times; not as static documentation, but as the foundation for automated systems powered by AI that detect, prioritise, and manage risk near real time. Having this infrastructure available during a period of instability or crisis directs attorney attention to where risk is genuine and eliminates the low-value tasks that consume high-quality time. The result: legal judgment concentrated on negotiation, strategic decision-making, and risk management that cannot be automated.

For decades, the standard for a capable General Counsel was relatively straightforward: sound legal judgment, negotiation skill, and keeping the company out of harm’s way. That expectation has not disappeared, but it is no longer sufficient. The modern legal function must enable the organisation to operate with clarity, make decisions quickly, and keep its exposure under control in any environment or period of sustained complexity and instability. That is the standard we hold ourselves to.

General counsel often speak of the need to be strategic to reach the pinnacle of the profession. What does being strategic mean to you?

Even in the era of AI, the central reflection is not technological. It is about leadership.

The modern CEO does not evaluate their general counsel solely on the quality of legal advice and opinions. They assess whether the legal function contributes to operating with clarity, speed, and control. That requires a fundamentally different profile than the one law schools produce, one that understands systems design, change management, data architecture, and the governance of AI tools; one that can distinguish which decisions require irreplaceable human judgment and which processes can and should be automated.

We are no longer just advisors. We are architects. We build the infrastructure on which the business operates with greater speed and confidence. In that transition, the legal department ceases to be perceived as a reactive cost center and becomes what it was always meant to be: a real competitive advantage. That is the real name of the strategy.

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

Two experiences define my trajectory in ways I am particularly proud of.

The first is the breadth of the cross-sector path itself: operating across think tanks, law firms, academia, tech startups, civil society, and government, moving between El Salvador and France, has produced a contextual intelligence that transactional practice rarely affords. The ability to bridge sectors, read institutional dynamics, and assess risk through multiple lenses is not something you acquire through a single career lane.

The second is having served as the most senior legal authority in two high-growth tech startups at very different stages of their maturity, both at moments of deep transformation. As LATAM Regional Legal Manager for Hugo App during the pandemic, I structured and led the formation of its first Regional Legal Department, established a compliance framework across six jurisdictions, and navigated exponential operational growth while simultaneously contributing to accelerating revenue creation under COVID-19 conditions.

Currently, as general counsel at Applaudo, I founded and scaled the Public Sector & Compliance legal division from the ground up, unlocking the company’s entry into B2G digital transformation across Latin America. Building that function from inception in public sector technology, where regulatory complexity, institutional accountability, and commercial stakes converge at their highest, is the kind of mandate that tests every dimension of the legal role simultaneously. It is the work I find most meaningful.

I like to describe myself as someone who helps tech companies move fast without breaking things.