About

Can you briefly explain how the legal team is structured, highlighting key individuals and their role within the department?

Ivannia Montero is business partner for crop science, seeds and environmental science, plus the research sites and share service centre, based in Costa Rica, supporting operations for Costa Rica and Panama.

Tania Belloso is business partner for pharma and radiology, the product supply site for Bayer medical devices, animal health and the regional corporate services. She is based in Costa Rica and supporting operations in El Salvador and Dominican Republic.

Catalina Morales, regional data privacy manager and legal PMO lead, is based in Costa Rica.

Juan Ignacio Zamora, regional compliance manager, is also based in Costa Rica.

Alejandro Najera, business partner for consumer health and the production sites of Amatitlán and Roosevelt, is based in Guatemala and supporting operations for Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Yeimi Pérez, administrative assistant, is based in Costa Rica.

Dr. Alejandra Castro: Besides being the head of the legal department, I have an additional role of intellectual country specialist for PACA region and Mexico, and supporting commercial operations in Cuba.

In the near future we will become part of a single country group with the Andean Countries in a region that will be named PACA.

What are the most significant cases and/or transactions that your legal team has been involved with in the last two years?

In September 2016, Bayer acquired Monsanto for US$66bn. This is the most significant transaction in the agriculture and biotechnology business. As a legal department of a region where both companies had commercial operations, this has been not only the biggest transaction ever, but the most complex one and also involved a lot of legal projects to ensure the appropriate integration. With the acquisition of this company, Bayer increased its own capacity for research and development combining crop traits with crop protection and a digital farming platform. We are aware that the next generation of farming will require customising solutions to local circumstances and as a legal department, we are preparing our strategy to support this amazing transformation.

Other significant transactions in which the legal department has been the key for success are the following:

Our data privacy manager led the GDPR implementation project for the company worldwide. The project took place in Germany for which she was chosen to do a ‘short-term assignment’ in Leverkusen, Germany for a period of seven months. By 2020 Bayer expects her to join one of the three global hubs providing data privacy services for all employees. This hub will service the complete American continent, and will be located in Costa Rica.

Divestment of our seed and herbicide business to BASF.

Divestment of our dermatology and sun care portfolio to Leo Pharma.

Divestment of our animal health division to Elanco.

Divestment of our product supply site for pharma generic molecules (Bonima) in El Salvador.

Investment in a consumer health product supply site in Guatemala.

Investment in a crop science product supply site in Guatemala.

Investment in the research and development centres in Costa Rica.

The set up and establishment of the Bayer Business Centre for the Americas in Costa Rica, where all the invoicing, HR process, order to cash (O2C) and invoicing is handled for Latin America, US and Canada.

Investment in a new product supply site for Medical Devices.

Antitrust approval in all the regions for all M&As.

CLMs project for regional contract administration.

Can you sum up the team culture/ethos? Giving some information afterwards about how this is developed.

Teamwork! Our team has a very clear ethos in which we do work as one unit for all the businesses in the company. Even though each of us has a very well established role internally, we all collaborate with the solutions that are provided, knowing that the knowledge and experiences acquired allow us to provide a complete response to the customer.

Every solution that we contribute to is compliant and has a 360 degree overview that includes all the areas involved in the legal department, this in order to help the business reach their commercial goal. As a team we base our decisions on transparency and integrity, making it very easy for us to develop a solution while working as a team, understanding the different roles that we have internally.

Successful leaders have high aspirations, great courage and resilience – in short, they have the right mind-set to lead. We all have that potential, the ability to develop, stretch ourselves, expand our abilities and adopt a new way of thinking.

Within LPC, having the right mind-set is about putting yourself in the shoes of the business and its customers, actively listening and engaging, taking time to build relationships, sharing openly, taking responsibility, using common sense and integrity, speaking out and applying excellent judgment. Collaboration, customer focus, experimentation and trust – we are making these behaviours the focus of our mind-set challenge within LPC – they are the building blocks in our self-development and will be the foundation of our success.

Our success as a team is based in trust and transparency. We all support each other and this is why I am very proud of my team and their achievements.

Working at Bayer not only offers an excellent work life balance environment, but also the opportunity to grow and learn within the company and from your own peers. Our LPC team is no exception. My team is a great partnership and we are very big on supporting each other every day, this makes work much more enjoyable and allows the team to get the job done with integrity, professionalism and efficiency. Additionally, Bayer gives you the freedom to think out of the box and take the initiative to innovate and grow, using all the tools that it can offer which are always on top of the digital evolution.