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

One experience that stands out as particularly unique and formative in my legal career was my time working as a member of the legal department of Gigabyte Technology in Taiwan. In that role, I was responsible for supporting the negotiation of commercial contracts and coordinating the registration and protection of trademarks across the Americas and Europe.

This experience was unusual because lawyers often build their careers within the same country in which they studied, qualified, and were admitted to practise. Working in Taiwan gave me the opportunity to operate in a legal, commercial, and cultural environment that was very different from the one in which I had received my legal education in Chile. It required me to move beyond the legal frameworks and professional practices with which I was already familiar and to develop a broader, more international understanding of the role of an in-house lawyer.

From a professional perspective, the position exposed me to areas of legal practice that were not necessarily part of the traditional career path for a lawyer in Chile at that time. I worked on complex cross-border contract negotiations involving counterparties from different jurisdictions, each with its own legal requirements, commercial expectations, and negotiation style. I also supported litigation and dispute-related matters in several jurisdictions, which required close coordination with external counsel and a careful understanding of local procedural and substantive rules.

The cultural dimension of the experience was equally significant. Living and working in a different part of the world required me to adapt to different ways of communicating, making decisions, and conducting business. I learned that successful legal advice in an international context depends not only on technical accuracy, but also on cultural awareness, flexibility, and the ability to understand the perspectives and priorities of colleagues and counterparties from different backgrounds.

The role also helped me develop a more practical and commercially focused approach to legal work. In a multinational technology company, legal issues cannot be considered in isolation. Contract negotiations, intellectual property protection, litigation strategy, and regulatory compliance must all be aligned with the company’s broader commercial objectives. This taught me to assess legal risk in context and to provide advice that was not only legally sound, but also practical, timely, and responsive to the needs of the business.

Most importantly, the experience reinforced the value of adaptability, curiosity, and sound judgment. It showed me that an effective lawyer must be able to operate confidently across jurisdictions, cultures, and business environments. Those lessons have remained relevant throughout my career and have shaped the way I approach complex legal matters, international negotiations, and the broader responsibilities of senior legal leadership.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on that you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful of?

One trend I have been watching closely over the past year is the increasing use of artificial intelligence agents within Companies. These tools go beyond traditional analytical applications because they may be able to access systems, process information, initiate actions, and support or influence decision-making with a greater degree of autonomy. While this creates significant opportunities for efficiency and innovation, it also introduces important legal, regulatory, and governance challenges.

From a compliance perspective, financial institutions must ensure that AI agents operate within clear boundaries and in accordance with obligations relating to privacy, data protection, banking secrecy, cybersecurity, operational resilience, consumer protection, and third-party risk management. In-house lawyers should pay particular attention to how these tools collect, access, process, retain, and transfer personal, confidential, or commercially sensitive information.

Access to internal systems is another critical concern. AI agents should be subject to strict permissions, segregation of duties, and the principle of least privilege. Institutions must be able to determine what systems an agent has accessed, what information it has used, and what actions it has taken. This is essential both to prevent security breaches and to respond effectively if an incident occurs.

Traceability and accountability are equally important. Where an AI agent contributes to a decision affecting customers, employees, counterparties, or regulatory obligations, the institution should be able to reconstruct the decision-making process and identify the individuals responsible for oversight. Clear audit trails, human review, escalation procedures, testing, and continuous monitoring are therefore essential.

In my view, legal and compliance teams should be involved from the earliest stages of design, procurement, testing, and implementation, rather than being consulted only after a solution has been deployed. Their role should include assessing the intended use, defining acceptable levels of autonomy, reviewing data sources and access rights, allocating responsibility, and ensuring that contractual arrangements with technology providers address confidentiality, cybersecurity, audit rights, incident response, regulatory cooperation, and liability. Institutions should also establish clear approval processes, risk classifications, documentation standards, and procedures for suspending or overriding an AI agent when necessary. The objective should not be to prevent innovation, but to ensure that it develops within a robust governance framework that preserves human accountability, protects customers and institutional data, and allows the Company to explain and defend how the technology is being used.