Angélica Santiago Cela – GC Powerlist
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Mexico 2022

Information technology

Angélica Santiago Cela

Spanish South America regional counsel | IBM Mexico

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Mexico 2022

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Angélica Santiago Cela

Spanish South America regional counsel | IBM Mexico

What are the key projects that you and your team have recently been involved in?

One of the most important challenges we had to deal with was the spin-off of IBM and the creation of Kyndryl. It was a global complex transaction as Kyndryl and IBM manage different sets of business, one focused on hybrid artificial intelligence while the other is centered around infrastructure services. From a corporate standpoint, it was a very interesting transaction, because we had to negotiate a lot of agreements with clients and suppliers to separate the business that we were providing. We were also involved in the transfer of personnel, proving how multifaceted the transaction was.

Simultaneously happening in Mexico was the labour law reform, so managing both matters was quite challenging for the team. This reform had implications from tax and social security perspectives too. The legal team displayed an extraordinarily brilliant effort through this time to manage these matters concurrently.

How are you safeguarding the long-term health of the business, with regard to the pandemic?

We are finding new sustainable ways to work. Most companies in this time have incorporated technology into aspects of work such as storage and managing information. I believe that as the adoption of technology has increased, we are not going to return to the previous phase before the pandemic. We will continue to evolve according to a technological business model. It is important to us to maintain the services we provide to our clients with minimal disruption. We have many ongoing negotiations with clients in different sectors to try to understand what they need at this time, and to align those needs with the services we provide.

Does your team use any “legal tech” products? And do you find them helpful as a management device?

The team uses technology such as videoconferencing to maintain our communications. We also use a tool developed by a local supplier, named Legal Shelf, which manages all the corporate documentation of the company. This has been so useful as we have been able to access relevant documents such as certificates of incorporation, the power of attorneys and more while we work remotely. Another tool we use which has been helpful was developed by EY and allows us to manage all the information we must provide to the authorities concerning the labour law reform.

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