With over two decades of service to the MAPFRE group, Juan Manuel Vales Cortés has grown with his years in the company after first joining as a junior lawyer, moving up through the ranks to become a senior lawyer and deputy legal director before eventually assuming his current role of legal director for international business. Stating the mantra of his legal advice, he states his legal team tries to be ‘operative and to be another part of the company, trying to move with the company and not after the footprints of it’.

Describing his career as having three distinct phases, Vales explains how the first one was at the beginning of his time at MAPFRE, where he helped on the international development of MAPFRE Asistencia, mainly in Europe and the Americas. He then describes the next phase as being where he assisted on the company’s growth, when it began acquiring companies around the world, in particular ‘the acquisition of InsureandGo in 2010 in the UK and Century Automotive in the US,’ both in 2012. The third and final phase he states is the current one, and his current workload includes helping in the repositioning of MAPFRE Asistencia in the international market.

Mainly involved in transactions and in legal disputes, Vales has won praise for his efforts regarding legal disputes with several ‘distributors in Europe’ as well as the successful execution of transactions in the Asia-Pacific region.