About

Patricia Barbelli has more than a decade’s experience in house, initially at PepsiCo, and subsequently at Bayer where she rose to senior legal manager. Since 2011, she has been Latin American regional director for Pirelli Tyres where she directs a team of a dozen located throughout the continent. Building upon her experience at Bayer (where she implemented a controls system for tax litigation cases totalling $600m), Barbelli has initiated the introduction of legal software for the control of ongoing cases at Pirelli, as well as completely restructuring the team in order to improve service levels and efficiency. Recently involved in complex M&A activity including the acquisition of stakes in distributors Campneus Líder de Pneumáticos (2012), and Abouchar (2013), she has also had to deal with local (Brazilian) antitrust cases and a product recall (2011), as well as managing a substantial litigation portfolio. Having frequently gained recognition internally (at Bayer she was nominated as Director of Legal and compliance at the age of only 29), external counsel too, has no doubt as to her capabilities: ‘Patricia is a very competent in house counsel who manages a broad range of issues throughout Latin America; most notably, she has the ability to negotiate and obtain consensus even in an adverse environment’, comments one peer. ‘In a company such as Pirelli she has to assist an eager business force and at the same time ensure the company complies with the relevant laws and regulations. I’ve had the opportunity to see that she is tremendously capable in performing this role without losing sight of either the business purposes or legal compliance requirements involved’. Deriving satisfaction from ‘managing people and being in close contact with, and supporting, the differing business areas’, she believes that as general counsel ‘it is essential to be a business driven lawyer’ and to seek ‘constant educational improvement’.