Team size: 4

Career Biography

Zamira Delgado Fernández is the Corporate Legal Manager (Head of Legal Department) at Plaza Lama, S.A., one of the Dominican Republic’s leading retail companies, a role she has held for seven years. She leads a team of four, overseeing a broad legal portfolio spanning contracts, leases, corporate/company law, trademarks, and litigation, together with labor law matters supporting the Human Resources function, insurance and civil liability, and regulatory compliance — while also supporting the group’s affiliated entities.

Over the past year, Zamira played a central role in closing several licensing and exclusive distribution agreements with internationally recognized companies for the commercialization of household appliances in the Dominican market. These negotiations required careful attention to intellectual property matters and local regulatory compliance — including consumer protection, labeling, and electrical safety standards — as well as the design of contractual mechanisms to safeguard product quality and brand reputation locally. In parallel, she led the legal team’s efforts to strengthen environmental regulatory compliance, an initiative that culminated in the launch of Plaza Lama Sostenible, supported by a legal framework developed entirely in-house to ensure long-term regulatory alignment and sustainability.

Zamira’s approach to legal risk is grounded in proactivity and integration with business strategy. She views the legal function as a stabilising force during periods of instability, combining risk mitigation with a forward-looking perspective. A distinguishing element of her practice is the deliberate exercise of understanding a counterparty’s position and constraints before negotiating, which has proven especially valuable during supply chain disruptions and the renegotiation of terms with international suppliers — allowing her to protect the company’s interests without unnecessarily closing doors.

Being strategic, in her view, means first understanding the internal client’s real objective before evaluating risk. Rather than positioning the legal department as a barrier to the business, she works to make stakeholders aware of the potential costs of a decision, enabling informed choices, and then collaborates on the internal adjustments needed to reach the objective — with legal protection built into the contract itself from the outset, not added as an afterthought. This philosophy guided, among other matters, the exclusive distribution agreements closed this past year, where her role was to walk the business through to closing while ensuring every relevant risk remained contractually safeguarded.

On the innovation front, Zamira has led the integration of artificial intelligence into her department’s internal processes, significantly reducing response times to internal clients. She maintains, however, that AI is a support tool rather than a substitute for professional judgment: every output is validated against its original source before use, preserving both accuracy and the human quality that distinguishes her team’s legal work.

She has been recognised for three consecutive years on the Legal 500 GC Powerlist: Dominican Republic.

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

Over the past year, I have played a central role in concluding several licensing and exclusive distribution agreements with internationally recognised companies for the commercialisation of household appliances in the Dominican market. These negotiations required careful consideration of intellectual property matters and local regulatory requirements, including consumer protection, labelling and electrical standards, as well as the development of contractual mechanisms designed to safeguard product quality and brand reputation in the local market.

In parallel, we led efforts to strengthen environmental regulatory compliance, culminating in the launch of Plaza Lama Sostenible. This initiative reflects the company’s institutional commitment to environmental responsibility and is supported by a legal framework developed entirely within our department to ensure regulatory alignment and long-term sustainability.

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

My approach during periods of instability is grounded in proactivity, clarity and integration with the company’s broader business strategy. I believe the legal function should act as a stabilising force, providing both a framework for mitigating risk and a forward-looking perspective.

One approach I have developed over time is consciously putting myself in the counterparty’s position and genuinely understanding their needs or constraints. This allows me to adjust my own position and steer negotiations towards solutions that protect the company without unnecessarily closing doors. This has proved particularly valuable during supply chain disruptions and the renegotiation of contractual terms with international suppliers, where rigidity is not always the most effective approach.

Maintaining constant communication with the executive team and developing my team’s ability to identify early indicators of legal risk are also key pillars of this approach.

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

To me, being strategic begins with understanding my internal client’s true objective before assessing the associated risks. I evaluate the advantages and disadvantages rigorously and, where a material risk exists, my role is not to stop the business but to ensure that my internal client understands the potential consequences of a particular decision so that the final choice is an informed one.

From there, we work together on the internal adjustments required to achieve the objective, maintaining clarity at every stage and ensuring that appropriate legal protections are built strategically into the contract rather than added afterwards as a barrier.

This approach guided the conclusion of the exclusive distribution agreements mentioned above. My role was not to restrict the negotiation, but to guide the business through to completion while ensuring that all material risks were appropriately addressed through contractual protections.

What do you think is the greatest innovation you have enacted in the past year?

The greatest innovation we have implemented over the past year has been the integration of artificial intelligence into the legal department’s internal processes, significantly reducing response times for our internal clients.

However, we regard AI as a support tool rather than a substitute for professional judgement. Every output is validated against the original source before being used, allowing us to benefit from greater efficiency while maintaining accuracy and preserving the human judgement that distinguishes our legal work.