Career Biography

Edwin Bustinza Lozada is a legal professional from Peru, with more than 20 years of professional experience in the mining industry. He is recognised for his expertise and specialises in responsible mining and ESG practices, corporate compliance, data protection, AML, contributing to sustainable practices in the natural resources sector and international transactions.

Edwin holds a law degree with honours from the University of Lima and a Master of Laws (LL.M) from the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law in Colorado, USA. He has served as a fellow at the Sustainable Development Strategies Group in Denver and is an alumnus of the International Anti-corruption Academy (IACA) in Austria.

Edwin leads teams in the development and execution of policies, compliance initiatives, and procedures that guarantee adherence to regulations and effective risk management. He has worked as in-house counsel for renowned national and international mining companies with presence in Peru. Since 2012, he has been working at Compañia de Minas Buenaventura (NYSE: BVN), being today DPO- Data Protection Officer and Compliance Director.

What are the key projects that you have been involved in over the past twelve months?

Over the past year, we have achieved significant milestones. One of them was updating our policy and records of interactions with public officials and intermediaries. With applicable regulations on corporate accountability now in effect, documentation requirements have changed.

Another significant milestone was the implementation and update of personal data protection in accordance with the new regulations in Peru. This framework requires us to review how we collect, store, and share personal data across the entire company. Doing this correctly involved reviewing every area of the business; training and raising awareness were key challenges, but we were able to achieve our goals.

A third project was implementing a corporate virtual assistant to help employees find answers on their own to questions about the code of ethics and the comprehensive compliance policy. A simple and effective idea. There were employees in mining operations who did not know what the corporate compliance policy was, so that needed to be addressed.

How can general counsel foster a corporate culture that supports ESG principles and compliance across all levels of the organisation?

It is essential that the GC integrate ESG principles into the organisation’s corporate values as well as into the company’s decision-making processes. In general, one of the main reasons for failure when implementing and fostering a culture of ethics and compliance, as well as ESG, is a lack of consistency between what policies, codes, and procedures establish and a lack of commitment to transparency, accountability, and ethical standards within the organisation. The result is impeccable for annual reports and sustainability reports, but operations and actions that have not changed at all. The entire organisation quickly realises this.

To address this, ongoing corporate training and communication must be established. It is important to go beyond regulatory compliance as a mere formality and foster genuine commitment. What works is being specific, transparent, and direct. Changing the way the organisation’s culture is lived out involves transforming generic messages—for instance, saying “we are committed to the responsible use of water”—into something more concrete and measurable such as “this is what it means for the operation of our processing plant, and who is responsible when it is not met.” In the mining industry, vague or generic commitments do not build trusting relationships with communities and stakeholders. In general, they tend to have the opposite effect.

As AI becomes increasingly integrated into legal teams, how can general counsel ensure the successful incorporation of these tools without compromising the human element?

Over the past three years, as AI has exploded in popularity and become widespread, the concern I repeatedly hear in forums is that AI will replace attorneys and compliance officers. Personally, however, that is not what truly worries me. By focusing on this, we overlook something more everyday yet relevant: people tend to view AI results or outputs as definitive answers because running them through a validation or verification process takes time, and the AI tool appears to provide accurate answers.

For illustrate this situation could arise during third-party due diligence reviews. Automated screening may not detect anything, and compliance teams may be ready to move forward, but a careful analysis could identify indirect relationships that AI had no way to detect, as these are the kinds of things that can only be found when you know the local context. Bear in mind that tools work exactly as they are designed; they simply are not designed for that kind of judgment -yet.

So, for me, the question and challenge will be how to protect the human element—and the answer is clear: which decisions require someone to take responsibility for them, and are we training those people to do so? When it comes to compliance, that list is longer than most AI tool vendors would suggest.