Team size: Nine

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

The biggest challenge we faced last year was the integration of the group’s hotel business (nine hotels) with the real estate business, while handing over the operation of six hotels to an international operator. Consequently, our company started managing the hotel business in addition to the real estate business, and that six of the hotels – which were previously operated by the group’s hotel company – were handed over to a third-party operator.

This was challenging as we had to devise ways to formally integrate both businesses; build our knowledge and experience of the industry, since from the real estate business we had to address aspects of the leisure business and negotiate agreements with an international company to hand over the operation of the hotels; and adapt to new human resources, due to the incorporation of members to our legal area, which meant an adaptation process to new ways of working and integrating to a new team.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most?

Lately, technology has become a particularly important tool in business processes. This has led to an increased need for legal teams to take advantage of modern technologies and improve their current systems to better manage their work, generate efficiencies and provide high value services to their internal customers. I believe that technological advances related to document, administrative and judicial processes management, contracts management, as well as the automatisation of workflows and processes, will continue to impact the way legal teams work.

What is a cause, business related or otherwise, that you care about, and why?

One of the factors I worry about the most is our team. I believe that it is essential for a company to have a high technical knowledge team. Above all, it is important for the team to possess skills that allow them to understand the business and its strategic initiatives, in such a way that they understand their role as facilitators for better decision making and value generation, to achieve the goal of their internal clients and the company.