About

Maria Rowena Ramos Espiritu has been afforded the chance to live out her ideal professional role with Huawei Philippines since taking on her role as legal affairs director for the company in March 2015: ‘In Huawei, I have been exposed to multi-million dollar deals, complex business transactions related to ICT and projects of national significance. Since I am passionate about ICT law, the deals, transactions and projects I handled in Huawei kept me challenged and inspired to go to work every day’. A large portion of Espiritu’s work is focused on negotiation in collaboration with other departments, giving her a keen eye for what is required for success in this area; in her opinion, in-house lawyers must be confident in their own judgment. ‘It involves not only keen attention to details, but also a lot of communication and correlation skills’, she says. ‘A lawyer who knows her craft does not easily succumb even to strong pressure when she knows that what she is advocating for has legal ground and based on sound business judgment. Successfully pulling through negotiations gives me the high and boosts my confidence in furthering the interest of Huawei’. Also, Espiritu has been the prime mover in shaping the Huawei Technologies Philippines legal department into its current highly effective state: ‘It is an understatement that things move fast in the ICT industry where Huawei is the leading company, and a lot of the things Huawei does and would like to do are “disruptive innovation”. As such, it is my duty to lead my legal team and other support departments to creatively advice the business teams what to do and what not to do to be legally compliant and maintain good reputation, without crippling our business potentials’.