GC Powerlist Peru

Prior to joining Enel Generación Perú (the largest private electric power generation company in the country) in 2011, Daniel Abramovich had spent over 12 years working as a private practice lawyer at law firm Payet, Rey, Cauvi Abogados. Over the last seven years of his tenure at Enel, Abramovich has received praise for leading a number of relevant arbitrations with excellent results, further expanding his knowledge in the process. ‘Certainly these experiences gave me additional skills that I did not have before, and also in an area that I find particularly interesting’, Abramovich says. In addition, in the last few years Abramovich made a key contribution to a number of corporate restructuring procedures carried out by the group, including mergers and the reorganisation of the structure of property. ‘These deals gave me the opportunity to be able to continue to do what I was used to do while being a “law firm lawyer”’, he explains. ‘Considering that those activities are precisely what I used to do for many years, we were able to do almost all the work in-house’. Another area of excellence for Abramovich includes his efforts on administrative procedures, working alongside relevant industry stakeholders such as regulators, competitors and others to ensure best-in-class internal compliance.

Interbank (also known as Banco Internacional del Perú) is one of Peru’s largest banks with approximately $12.7bn of total assets. In April 2007, Zelma F. Acosta-Rubio joined the executive management team of Interbank as general counsel and board secretary – she is now also responsible for overseeing Interbank’s corporate affairs and corporate social responsibility integrated strategy. Despite working as a legal professional for 16 years prior to this appointment, Acosta-Rubio admits it was rare for someone without a long-standing career in the banking industry to be selected for such a prominent position; although Interbank were clearly aware of her capability in such legal matters. On her early activities at the bank, she says, ‘The technical learning curve was steep, however, being a quick learner with fine business acumen, experience in Latin America and strong communication skills I knew I could build the team Interbank needed. At the outset, I presented a vision, a plan and a budget to restructure the legal function’. Acosta-Rubio adds, ‘The opportunity moulded me in becoming a visionary and inspirational leader with a clear intent to effect change in the legal profession, particularly, in the in-house function’. Having trained with the bank’s C-Suite teams on strategy, service models, leadership, execution, disruptive business trends and innovation, Acosta-Rubio plays a key role in the management of the company. ‘As general counsel, Interbank’s board and leadership team expected me to bring a legal perspective to the table but overall my mandate is to make things happen and unlock corporate value with a shared value perspective and the highest standards of transparency and integrity, whilst in alignment with the Banks´s strategy’, she explains. Further demonstrating her worth to the company, Acosta-Rubio has oversight of corporate finance transactions, most of which are signed, negotiated and executed entirely in-house. ‘In the last three years I have been involved in major negotiations with IT providers assisting to design the new IT architecture of the bank. During 2016, I led the team negotiating our first IT Outsourcing Contract with US Technology Company IBM’, she claims. She also participates in the Banking Law Committee of the Peruvian National Association of Banks (ASBANC). Advising ASBANC on regulatory trends, identifies industry wide threats and opportunities, she has served as ASBANC vice president or president for a total of five years. The position has allowed her to develop excellent relationship with regulators and anticipate business risks for the bank´s operations, including, participating in drafting new laws and regulations for the banking industry, particularly, consumer protection regulations, retail banking regulation, corporate governance and solutions for digital banking. She is also commended for being an active promoter of female empowerment and leadership in the workplace having lectured, written and participated on panels for this topic. Prior to interbank, Acosta-Rubio spent three years as general counsel for ChurroMania International Corporation. Between 1991 and 2000 she served as an associate at law firm Clifford Chance in London.

Since joining Unión de Cervecerías Peruanas Backus y Johnston (Backus) in 2011, Luis Carlos Adrianzén Rodríguez has built an impressive reputation in the areas of ‘antitrust, unfair competition, advertising law, consumer protection and barriers to entry to the market’. He recalls that the landmark takeover of SAB Miller (of which Backus is a part) by AB Inbev has led to significant changes in the structure to the company’s legal team and, as the now leader of the team, he has been instrumental in enabling these. On his accession to the role of leader of the Backus legal team, he says: ‘It was a challenge I faced with a lot of excitement but also with some natural fear, though I am used to saying that “if there is no fear it is perhaps because it is not an important challenge”. Taking the position made me grow in several aspects (leading skills, organisation, stakeholder engagement), and made me realise that I am in the capacity of leading a legal team of a big company and have to succeed no matter the resources available’. Adrianzén counts the increased engagement and cooperation between the commercial and marketing teams and legal as among the most important internal improvements enacted during his time in the legal team. ‘The commercial and marketing teams are used to feel that the legal teams are a permanent barrier for their projects and it is difficult for them to see us as a partner’, he explains. ‘Now, I feel proud of the direct communication we have, and the fact that they ask me to get involved in their projects from the beginning. They now know I am there to help them and to find solutions to problems without obstructing the process’.

In 2015 Alfonso Buenaventura Aguilar Calvo assumed the position of corporate legal manager and secretary of the board of Banco Azteca del Perú, the general secretariat of the Fundación Azteca del Perú and the Executive Secretariat of the Salinas Group in Peru. As a testament of his excellent leadership qualities, within the first year of assuming this position, the legal team that he managed obtained second place in Latin America in an internal customer satisfaction survey. ‘This fills me with satisfaction because it means that with the right leadership all teams are able to achieve and improve their results and at the same time satisfy their internal clients’, he says of the achievement. Since then Aguilar has participated in the renegotiation of the insurance commercialisation contracts that Banco Azteca and Elektra had with insurance company RIMAC Seguros and also the elaboration of the first monthly credit contract with special characteristics in Peru for clients with limited economic resources. Approved by the SBS (Superintendency of Banking and Insurance), this is the first time that Banco Azteca has managed to have a contract of this type in all of its operations. Aguilar started his professional career at Wiese Sudameris Bank, which later became Scotiabank Perú. Starting as judicial recovery counsel, he was promoted on several occasions during his 13 years there holding positions such as senior legal counsel, deputy legal manager and finally head of compliance. For four consecutive years at Scotiabank Perú, he obtained along with his team, the Scotia Excellence Awards between 2009 and 2012 for “Best Support Team”. Amongst his most notable achievements, Aguilar takes pride in being selected as a consultant reviewer of reports for World Bank on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) in order to identify opportunities to improve principles and guidelines for effective insolvency and creditor rights systems. ‘This experience allowed me to have contact with highly qualified professionals from different parts of the world, which contributed to enrich my professional experience in multidisciplinary teams’, says Aguilar.

Legal affairs manager Karen Ames Vasquez has led a number of extremely important transactions during her time as legal affairs manager of asset management firm Sigma Safi. These range from her leadership on the development of the Fondo de Infraestructura investments in wind power plants, electrical transmission lines and highways for over $200m to the launch of the Fondo de Leasing Operativo LVI for $100m and the structuring of contracts for operative leases in the urban transport sector for over $25m. In addition to these business-boosting contributions on behalf Sigma Safi, Ames has made changes that have built and consolidated company’s in-house legal function. This has included changing the nature of legal support to the company from a strictly outsourcing model to what she states are ‘specialised lawyers in regulatory, contractual and financial topics’ which had the result of making the firm ‘exempt from depending on external law firms’. This had the effect of ‘efficient and effective management of a large portfolio of clients, while providing equilibrium with the consulting of external law firms’. Before joining Sigma Safi, first as a contracts lawyer, Ames worked for RIMAC Seguros providing assistance and advisory in the legal matters related to compliance of regulations on the corporate and insurance structures.

Starting his in-house legal career in 2008 at Colgate-Palmolive as a legal and labour relations executive, Ricardo Andrés Velarde Friedl has since achieved a number of milestones during his time as a professional in Peru and the wider Latin American region. In 2014, he was appointed to his current role at Mondelēz International as senior counsel for Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, seeing Chile added to his responsibilities in 2016. Velarde identifies three particular career highlights, all of which are connected to his own self-improvement; these are in regards to expertise in organisational culture, empowerment and diversity, each of which have contributed to his skillset and ability to achieve results for his businesses. Velarde explains that he promotes legal advice that ‘analyses and facilitates information for decision making’ and provides counsel that is strictly strategic in nature. He states, ‘Legal guides and protects the company’s interests by promoting a preventive approach for any matter or against potential risks’. Velarde has utilised this approach to contribute towards important initiatives for the company, including the reinvention of Mondelēz’ supply chain. He gave legal advice connected with ‘infrastructural, environmental and commercial’ aspects in order to implement a new supply chain model in the region without any economic impact or business disruption for the company in Latin America. Another key involvement for Velarde was his contribution to the company’s brand protection agenda, where he managed the reacquisition of a brand that was ‘surprisingly registered before the trademark agency by a competitor without paying any amount to the other party’, a deal that had the potential impact of approximately $1m.

Grupo Breca is a major Peruvian conglomerate that operates through a number of large subsidiaries in a range of business sectors. Overseeing legal matters for this vast organisation is vice president – corporate legal Miguel Angel Salmón, a legal professional with over 20 years of in-house experience. Having worked at the Group for nine years, Salmón is closely aligned to the business operations of the group, having a key role in devising corporate legal strategies. Prior to Breca Group, he spent over nine years as legal manager at Grupo El Comercio, an Ecuadorian broadcast media company. Between 1996 and 1999 he was legal manager at Empresa Siderurgica del Peru. Salmón graduated from the University of Lima in 1988.

José Antonio Barrera Ayala started his in-house career providing professional legal services to two of the most recognised gas and oil exploration companies in Peru – initially for Pluspetrol and subsequently with Peru LNG within the hydrocarbons department. In October 2005 he joined the National Society of Mining, Petroleum and Energy (SNMPE) – a guild of mining and energy companies in Peru. During his time there he worked as the legal advisor in the energy sector and was the coordinator of the hydrocarbons legal committee and the electricity legal committee. This role allowed him to have an integral vision of the private sector, ‘since it evaluated the impact of the legal norms or normative projects that had an impact on companies in the hydrocarbon sector as well as the electricity sector’, he claims. Joining Repsol in 2008, Barrera was initially in charge of the GLP business unit. He currently serves as its legal advisor, in charge of the LPG business which in turn has allowed him to thoroughly familiarise himself with the operation of a private company, as well as advising on legal issues with implications in the commercial and regulatory unit. Barrera has also participated and led the contract negotiations of the most significant projects of Repsol Perú, one being Project RLP 21 – the downstream modernisation project of La Pampilla Refinery for obtaining cleaner fuels, as well as the project for the installation of a new maritime terminal, standing as the first marine terminal with these characteristics in Peru. ‘In both projects my participation in Madrid was necessary to be able to negotiate the contracts for these projects’, says Barrera.

British American Tobacco’s operations in Peru have been in existence for over 20 years and encompasses the import and marketing of eight brands of cigarettes throughout the country. Contributing heavily to the company’s position as a market leader in Peru, legal and regulatory manager Claudia Aragon Nuñez has a remit that includes the protection of BAT’s brands by ensuring the ongoing legal and compliance agenda is fulfilled successfully. Aragon has been praised for dealing with issues that include licensing and litigation affairs, as well as for being central to the business’s alignment with BAT’s core business principles; these include conducting business with honesty, integrity and transparency in order to contribute to the continuous development of a company that is responsible and sustainable in the long term. Having spent almost eight years at BAT, Aragon has been a key figure at the business across a variety of legal positions in Chile, Argentina and Peru. She first joined as a legal analyst and was then a legal supervisor before starting her current role in August 2015.

Veronica Arbulu joined the multinational renewable energy generation business Statkraft at a time of significant change and transformation for the legal department, and after instantly impressing her colleagues with her unique legal foresight, was rapidly promoted to lead the company’s Peruvian legal function in 2015. Arbulu’s leadership efforts at the helm of the department since then have been nothing short of impressive, with sources praising her work to reposition the legal department to a strategic partnership role to the CEO and other business and staff areas. ‘This allows us to generate better decisions and enables us to always take into consideration all the risks, while at the same time looking for innovative solutions and taking into consideration the law, as well as our company’s policies, culture and times,’ Arbulu shares when asked to comment on the matter. She has also been praised for actively contributing to the implementation of a compliance culture in Statkraft’s Peruvian operations, as well as her active participation in corporate associations in the country. Since 2017, for instance, Arbulu has been acting as president of the legal committee of the National Association of Mining, Energy and Oil – a renowned organisation in Peru. Arbulu boasts a combined total of over 12 years of experience in national and multinational infrastructure and energy companies.

A highly-regarded lawyer with a wealth of international experience gained over a private practice career during which he campaigned successfully as a commercial lawyer for WilmerHale and Uría Menéndez in London and Madrid respectively, Miguel Argüelles embarked upon the in-house chapter of his career in mid-2007 when he joined Interbank. Here, he was an integral part of the legal function for almost a decade, using his commercial expertise to achieve significant results for the company. His performance was noticed by engineering, procurement and construction firm GCZ Ingenieros, a company specialising in providing engineering solutions to hydroelectric power stations, and he has been operating as general counsel for the Lima-based business since March 2017.

Celebrating his 25th year at COSAPI, Luis Humberto Arrese Orellana has truly in-depth understanding of the company, enabling him to be a highly respected expert. He has become a specialist in construction law, something that did not exist as a specialisation as he entered the business but has become well recognised over the years. It is to this end that he currently stands as the president for the Peruvian Society of Construction Law, highlighting the social and academic recognition of the existence of the construction law in Peru as well as becoming a teacher at Peruvian University, Universidad del Pacifico. Arrese joined COSAPI in November 1993 and in February 1999 was appointed as general counsel: ‘I was named general counsel and maintained that position during all these years not only due to hard work (which is normal for this job) but because I always try to be imaginative and persistent. I always have in mind that I am liable for the legal interests of an excellent company, and this means that you always must give your best effort’, says Arrese upon reflection. When Arrese joined COSAPI, the legal department was comprised of two lawyers and the legal division’s role was solely as advisors, not participating directly in dealings or solving cases. Thanks to Arrese there has been a significant change, with lawyers participating directly in several deals and advising directly on different project sites, consequently changing the perception of the team to a very proactive legal department with excellently trained lawyers. He has also implemented the use of several software platforms that allow lawyers to work from home. Amongst his stand-out work, he managed to reverse the result of a public tender in 2011, meaning that the joint venture between COSAPI and another national construction company obtained the award of a public work valued at approximately $50m.

An established specialist in civil, commercial and banking law, Leonor Avendaño Arana currently navigates the legal department of Banco Ripley in Perú, a leading provider of savings and current accounts, loans, life and health insurance products and credit cards to retail customers. Over her nearly five-year tenure at the company, Avendaño has impressed with both her extensive knowledge of administrative and state legislation, as well as her ability to effectively organise structure, make decisions and manage personnel. Her operational improvements include an extensive reorganisation of the department, implementation of compliance across the structure of the company, integration with other areas of the group and the advancement of corporate governance. On the transactional front, Avendaño has impressed with her advice and management on the issuance of negotiable deposit certificates for up to $50m and $144m in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Avendaño’s legal career features over 25 years of experience at various financial institutions in Peru.

EsSalud is a decentralised Peruvian public body that provides healthcare services for millions of insured people in the county. A lawyer with a strong ethical streak, María del Carmen Barragán Coloma heads the legal function of the organisation. A prominent figure for her experience and technical skills in the country’s in-house legal market, del Carmen has a earned a positive reputation for successfully assisting EsSalud on negligence cases, conducting bidding processes as well as real estate matters: she worked on the purchase of land in Azángaro for the construction of a new hospital. Outside of her profession, del Carmen has been active in domestic politics advocating for further efficiency and transparency in order to encourage and promote justice among public officials.

Providing legal services to oil and gas and mining companies in the country since graduating as a legal professional in 2005, Ricardo Gustavo Barrios Scogings currently finds himself serving as the in-house lawyer for Peru-based gold mining company, Compañía Minera Poderosa, the fourth largest producer of gold in Peru with over 40 years of activity in the market. Although Barrios has been in this role since November 2017, he brings with him previous experience gained from large scale litigations and transactions at reputable Peruvian and multinational companies including Occidental Petroleum, Talisman Energy, SK Innovation and Interoil. His impressive portfolio has seen him specialise in oil, gas and mining law over the years and reflecting on this, Barrios says: ‘It is amazing how everything I learned in my whole career, can be applied in other high demanding positions’. As an individual who prides himself in his values and ethics, Barrios reveals: ‘As a legal professional I learned over time that working with high standard companies is not only to the company’s benefit but yourself. Everything that I learned has been translated to my day-to-day life and works perfectly’. Barrios understands the importance of sharing experiences and how the need of the internal and external clients is key to excel in this line of work: ‘Practical solutions aligned with the company’s policies and country regulations are fundamental to provide adequate and creative advice to all the stakeholders’ adding: ‘Ethical, team worker, transparent and respectful is how I define myself’.

A subsidiary of the Israeli pharmaceutical giant, Teva Peru counts on legal and governmental affairs director Carlos Bazán Puelles to provide the expert legal counsel required to operate in this highly regulated industry. Bazán was previously an associate with Muñiz, Ramírez, Perez-Taiman & Olaya, and also worked as a multi-jurisdiction legal manager for PepsiCo working for the company for over five years in total. On reflection Bazán says that period allowed him to ‘gain great legal experience dealing with different corporate cultures and meet outstanding people’. He moved to Teva Peru in late 2014, and explains the philosophy for organising a legal department that he has put into place here: ‘During my work leading legal departments, I have had to restructure them based on the needs of the company relating to efficiency and productivity. I am strong believer that legal not only has to be a guardian or business partner for the company, but a value creator too, creating and defending value through legal and non-legal activities’.

A Peruvian business group, Grupo Romero is a leader in numerous business sectors as well as one of the most successful and important business entities in Peru. As the current general counsel for the Group, Michel Biber holds a prominent position in Peru’s in-house legal market and is highly regarded for his longevity in the profession. He has worked on numerous large transactions as part of the aggressive expansion of Grupo Romero’s subsidiaries in Latin America. The latest deals Biber has overseen include the 2018 purchase of Peruana Combustibles (Pecsa), a Peruvian operator of fuel service stations, by Primax for around $350m. This is a deal which will see it dwarf competitors as the largest chain of service station in the country. At the time of writing, Biber is assisting another of the Group’s subsidiaries, Inversiones Piuranas, in its purchase of Archer Daniels Midland’s agricultural business in Bolivia.

Guido M. Bocchio’s legal career commenced at the early age of 20 in a Lima-based law firm, with a focus on commercial and civil cases and lawsuits. Bocchio now has 36 years in the field with 22 years in leading teams in natural resources and water law. In 1995, Southern Peru Copper Corporation (SPCC) asked him to assume new legal roles until he was appointed to his current position of legal and natural resources manager in Lima, working for the company’s top management. This was a change from his professional experience as it not only included private enterprises but also public ones. Working in the areas of operation of a large-scale renowned mining company has been a thoroughly formative part of his career: ‘The importance of mining in the country made me value this activity as a real contributor to national development and with many possibilities for further growth and improvement’, Bocchio states. Due to his ‘honest work’ and overall experience he has gained, he has been able to strengthen the values of his collaborators – something that has been fundamental for his cohesive legal management strategy to achieve successful results and to reach set goals: ‘My management is a mixture of legal and technical effort as can be imagined by the name of the position. Thus, this approach of complex interdisciplinary work with legal basis has been positively evaluated by my superiors’, Bocchio adds. A very enriching milestone in his career was being the official spokesperson for the Tía María project, at the request of the executive president of SPCC. It was a unique public relations role that was very ‘delicate and challenging’ and where he learned a lot when the project was already in a critical situation due to negative social perception. ‘It was a period in which I acquired a lot of private and public experience in the development of important national projects under conflict, something unfortunately latent. When I remember that time I usually think of the saying “there are defeats that are worth victories”’, explains Bocchio.

With an extensive portfolio due to the numerous board of director and general counsel roles he’s taken on during his career, Guillermo Cabieses is an experienced lawyer and scholar versed in legal and economic theory. Legal roles aside, he has concurrently served as a professor of law and economics, teaching topics related to contracts, legal theory, antitrust and M&A amongst others. Cabieses has only been the principle and general counsel at Nexus for four months, but in that short time, has had the chance to participate in two very important acquisitions, one in the pharmaceutical industry and the other in the industrial sector. He also has been able to establish in this short period several criteria to allow the attorneys of the portfolio companies to manage legal risks without depending exclusively on the CEO’s of each company. Another notable role he has was at Credicorp Capital, the investment bank platform of Credicorp, with operations in Peru, Chile, Colombia, Panama, the UK and the US, where he was offered the corporate general counsel and board secretary role. Assuming this position at the age of 32 made him the youngest member of the senior management team, an achievement he is thoroughly proud of considering the success to follow. Cabieses built a team to oversee of all legal affairs of the 25 companies and hundreds of funds Credicorp Capital managed. During this time he also was a member of the management committee, the compliance committee, the ethics committee and the risk committee. After over four years in Credicorp Capital he was offered a senior position at Nexus Group, the biggest private equity fund in Peru, with approximately $1bn of capital commitments. ‘I had a hard time deciding whether I should leave Credicorp after nearly ten years, but the offer was very appealing as it comprised a joint appointment, as a business executive principal and general counsel, in the most successful private equity fund in Peru so I could further my corporate experience by handling businesses directly’, Cabieses says. His time at Credicorp was marked by a number of highlights, particularly his key contribution to the structuring and fund raising of a private investment infrastructure fund in Colombia of approximately $500m, the biggest fund for infrastructure investment in the history of Colombia. Cabieses also had a stint at Pacifico Seguros, where he led the negotiation team in the acquisition of five hospitals, two labs, one dental care network and four other health related businesses over a period of 18 months.

An experienced trilingual lawyer for prestigious multinational companies in the mining sector, Claudio Cáceres Franco leads the legal area for Minera Las Bambas providing advice in mining, environmental, corporate, civil, financing and social issues. Prior to his current role he served as legal manager in charge of legal management at Glencore Copper Group in Peru. One of the main achievements obtained in the last years of his career has been to provide legal advice in the transaction related to the sale of the Las Bambas mining project between Glencore and MMG, valued at $7bn, as well as the design of the legal strategy to obtain the governmental approvals needed for its construction and operation. Cáceres possesses a strong ability to interact with national, regional and local authorities as well as participating in different dialogue processes with farmer communities in the Andes of Peru, including the legal advice during the negotiation process for the resettlement of the Fuerabamba farmer community for the Las Bambas project. Cáceres also had active participation in leading the strategy to obtain governmental consents for construction and operations as well as dialogue processes with local communities: ‘As part of the development of Las Bambas project, I have actively participated in various dialogue processes with communities. Thus, I had the opportunity to provide legal advice during the resettlement process of the Fuerabamba Community’. This has significantly contributed to have a direct approach with local communities of the Southern Highlands of Peru and to understand their requirements, concerns, forms of organisation, among others – something which is critical to provide better legal advice to the various internal areas. Cáceres is described as a leader who is capable of managing highly productive work teams and someone who is capable of adapting to change and new situations.

Boasting almost 15 years of legal experience, Javier M. Calmell del Solar has evolved from a transactional lawyer to a legal professional with a broader vision. ‘My current position in Supermercados Peruanos requires me to analyse and identify legal issues in all departments of the corporation, and to design strategies to reduce legal contingencies’, he explains. Over the course of his career, Calmell del Solar has particularly impressed with his work on the acquisition of telecommunications business Nextel Perú by Entel Chile for $406m, completed in 2013 when Calmell del Solar worked at Nextel. ‘I had always worked in M&A transactions as a private practice lawyer, but this particular transaction allowed me to live the experience from another perspective, an internal one,’ he states. ‘This transaction was considered the Latin American M&A transaction of the year in 2013’, he adds. Significant career highlights for Calmell del Solar over the last three years include leading the team that faced a procedure initiated ex officio by the Peruvian Consumer Protection Commission related to possible nationwide pricing error practices, as well as closing a S/150m credit agreement entered with Banco de Crédito del Perú. He is also commended for providing legal support to Supermercados Peruanos’ sustainability department regarding the implementation of donation procedures to a child support NGO, the Banco de Alimentos (Food Bank Foundation).

Cesar Jose Canorio Vicuña has a number of career highlights to look back on over the course of more than two decades in the legal profession. A highly-educated individual who has received honours from Yale School of Management, the prestigious ESAN graduate school of business as well the Lima University; Canorio began his professional legal career in the construction sector for two years with an important Peruvian construction group. He then spent two years in private practice in Lima before joining Grupo Mota-Engil company Mota-Engil Perú in late 1999. He details some of his favourite moments with the company since then: ‘Among my favourite highlights have been the negotiation of construction contracts with large mining clients and concessionaires of public infrastructure, the constant interrelationship with engineers and professionals of other skilled careers within the company, and the fact that I have been a participant in a large multidisciplinary team’. All these experiences, he says, ‘help me to constantly rethink ways of serving the company, and innovate as an in-house lawyer should’. Canorio has indeed made a number of important improvements to the legal function of the company over the course of his tenure. On this subject, he says: ‘The first change was to liberate the company from the dependence on a single external study, and to make viable the possibility of resorting as necessary to various first-level external consultants. The second was to achieve an efficient use of resources, enhancing the return of the company’s investment in its internal legal area, always working with a compact, productive and multi-area structure. Finally, the daily challenge is to make those who make up the company change their perception of the function of an internal legal area, ensuring they understand that preventing legal issues is always much better and less expensive than a corrective intervention after occurrence’. Given Canorio’s experience, qualifications and proven track record of success, Mota-Engil Perú can count on a highly effective, organised and capable in-house legal function to support of its objectives.

A hugely experienced lawyer with expertise in corporate, tax, finance and anti-money laundering matters, Lorena Carrillo Alvarez Calderón has achieved a number of milestones over the course of a glittering in-house legal career. Carrillo has held her current position since 2005, and in the 12 years since has been integral to a number of Citibank del Peru’s most important projects. These include, but are not limited to, the conversion of Citibank Peru from a branch to a subsidiary, the pioneering spin-off and subsequent sale of the consumer and commercial business as well as the leadership of legal, compliance and control units. She states, ‘I have worked under the constraint of trying to keep our legal department as small and as efficient as possible’, and to achieve this has overseen a number of schemes including implementing a ‘support area within our operations division’. This satellite support division has been so successful in Peru that is currently being replicated in other countries in the region. It has been highlighted as an extremely efficient solution which allows ‘scarce, expensive and highly specialised human resources in legal departments to focus their talent on those tasks that provide the largest benefit to the company as a whole’. High-value transactions Carrillo has assisted on in the region include the $295m-valued Citibank Peru spin-off of its consumer and commercial business to a NewCo, and the subsequent sale of 100% this NewCo to Scotiabank Peru.

Since it began investing in 2007, Enfoca has turned into one of the largest private equity firms in Peru, with over $1bn in assets under management. Chief legal officer and general counsel Edgardo Cavalié has served the company since 2009. Having spent 10 years as an expert M&A associate for law firms White & Case and Skadden Arps prior to Enfoca, Cavalié’s transactional and negotiating skills were needed when the company agreed a $950m secondary venture capital transaction in 2018 with Goldman Sachs Asset Management to recapitalise certain funds that it manages. Cited as ‘one the largest secondary deals, if not the largest, involving a Latin American private-equity manager in recent history’, the deal which Cavalié assisted on demonstrates Peru’s increasing appeal to private-equity investors. He is also pivotal in Enfoca’s 2018 acquisition of UCAL-Toulouse Group, a significant acquisition within the higher education industry. Outside of his profession, Cavalié is also a member of the FIFA Licensing Commission of the Peruvian Football Federation and a member of the Children’s Commission of the Peruvian Football Federation. He graduated from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in 1997.

Azelea Chavez has been head of legal counselling on contracting for the last three years, a position which sees her oversee the preparation, review and legal negotiation of all telecommunication contracts the business requires. América Móvil is the fourth largest mobile network operator in terms of equity subscribers and one of the largest corporations in the world. Chavez started her journey at América Móvil Peru in January 2007, starting off as a legal practitioner and working her way up to legal assistant, eventually focusing on the contracting area – a role she has evidently excelled at over the years, leading her to her current position as head of legal counselling in contracting. An excellent communicator, Chavez shows aptitude for negotiating with national and foreign suppliers, customers and business partners. She is responsible for advising and protecting compliance with the legal framework in the participation of the company in the various selection processes convened by state entities. This includes public tenders and bids convened by ProInversion and Fitel for the concession of public services and infrastructure deployment. Chavez is also responsible for elaborating the defence strategies, which mainly entails the preparation and submission of oral reports to the OSCE Contracting Court and state entities.

Jorge L. Conde Granados has more than 13 years of proven legal experience, participating in numerous works of strategic corporate planning and contractual investments in Peru and on a global scale. Conde specialises in corporate law, M&As, project finance, arbitration, contractual, corporate and mining law. With extensive experience in the business field, he is currently a lawyer and legal guardian of Cementos Portland, arbitrator of Organismo Supervisor de las Contrataciones del Estado (OSCE), president of Centro de Estudios de Sociedades y Fusiones y Adquisiciones (CEFAS) of The Faculty of Law at Universidad San Martin de Porres and a member of the high level commission in charge of the reforming of the general law of companies of Peru. In his final year at university, at the age of 23, the Ministry of Justice in Peru appointed him as technical secretary of Commission in charge of elaborating a draft laws. He joined Cementos Portland in 2010, a company belonging to the multinational Votorantim Cimentos Brazil and Cementos Bio Chile. During his time at Cementos Portland, Conde has grasped all the requirements and regulations of the cement industry, not only corporate regulation but also sector-specific regulation too. He has additionally worked on the most relevant negotiations and acquisitions that the company has had, ensuring that they are fulfilled according to the law and protection of the shareholders and the administrators of the company. He has also maintained constant communication with the lawyers of the foreign shareholders in order to report the principal shares of Cementos Portland. ‘These situations made me achieve a perfect balance in the competencies of my profession’, he says.

Officially open for business in 2010, Peru LNG is a $3.8bn liquefied natural gas plant that was the first of its kind in South America upon commencing operations. Solange Cuadros Ramírez is legal manager for this pioneering project, and brings with her a wealth of experience in the energy and hydrocarbons sectors. Indeed, she previously had a five-year stint at Peru LNG as a legal counsel from 2007 to 2012, after which she took on positions in the in-house legal teams of GCZ Energía and Energy Development Corporation before taking on her current role in January 2017. Cuadros considers ‘the legal support provided in the social management of the project’ at Peru LNG as one of her career highlights, as the area used by the project contained a number of local communities that would be affected by it. As such: ‘The social challenges faced by the project were very high and the constant support of the legal area in that regard was important. I had the opportunity to participate in negotiations with the communities involved and this taught me to consider the social nuance in the legal advice we provide’. She also speaks to the improvements and innovations she has made to the in-house legal team since re-joining in 2017: ‘I have sought to bring the legal department even closer to internal clients, as I believe that an internal lawyer should be close to the other departments of the company as this will allow us to be strategic partners to the business’. As well as this, Cuadros mentions her role on ‘the construction of the LNG Loading Station in Pampa Melchorita’ as a particularly significant project that she has taken a lead on. ‘The station required an investment of $17m, has a capacity of 240,000 gallons per day of liquefied natural gas and is enabled for the loading of trucks of 13 thousand gallons capacity’, she explains.

General counsel of the family-owned industrial conglomerate Grupo Gloria (which operates in the food and dairy, cement, sugarcane and sugar, paper, cardboard and transportation sectors), Fernando Devoto advises that much of the company’s success can be traced to its constant state of activity. ‘This growth has imposed much work pressure in our service areas with an average of two corporate M&A transactions per year, including what these imply for the negotiation and financing aspects. Throughout this constant growth we have not concentrated only in one unit of business or country but have also implied a diversification of the Group both in other countries in the region and in other business lines’. Progressive by nature, Devoto is also proud of his championing of an equal working environment for all employees: ‘Looking forward and ensuring the legal department will have an adequate working environment for the upcoming years, I have been empowering women to choose the appropriate level of gender uniform in the corporation, as well as updating the shift onto a digital platform. I have also worked on increasing my teams’ capability in softer skills that will demand leadership in the near future such as perseverance, team work, empathy, tolerance and negotiations. This has had a strong impact on the overall company’. From a business perspective, Devoto has also had marked success with Grupo Gloria. ‘We have made two major acquisitions in our cement sector business’, he explains: ‘one in Bolivia worth $300m and another in Ecuador for $280m. The financing implied for both acquisitions was done through syndicated loans with commercial banks as well as through some local bond issues’. Through such deals, Devoto has earned acclaim from a number of nominating sources.

One of the most proficient and competent in-house counsel in the mining sector in Latin America, Guillermo Diez Canseco Tirado has over a decade of experience at the world’s pre-eminent mining company: Barrick Gold Corporation, the parent company of Minera Barrick Misquichilca. His vast technical expertise of the mining legal sector is also highlighted by his nine years as a university professor teaching the subject; he also currently teaches a Master’s degree course in health and safety management. Formerly a senior lawyer with Barrick Gold, he progressed to the role of legal chief in 2013 and since 2014 has headed up the legal function for the company’s Lagunas Norte mine as legal superintendent. This is a particularly prestigious position, as the mine is one of the largest and most profitable in the world. He describes his role as such: ‘My main responsibilities are to provide legal advice to the various branches of the operation on issues related to environment and social management in the area of influence, to ensure compliance with current regulatory frameworks related to the operation, to obtain the permits required for the mine to operate and to review contracts and to provide legal advice throughout their execution. I also secure the surface land required to operate, manage and monitor judicial processes and administrative procedures surrounding environmental, safety and health issues. As well as this, I represent the company’s interests in negotiations with various interest groups and provide training on business codes and ethics’. Diez also describes the significant role he played in a major Barrick project: ‘In 2009, Barrick responded to a request from the Asociación de Mineros Artesanales del Alto Chicama (AMACHIC). The objective was to legalise the mining activities carried out by AMACHIC associates within an area where mining rights are owned by Barrick. As the head of the legal department at Lagunas Norte mine, I had the opportunity to promote the formalization process as it related to the authorities, in coordination with AMACHIC representatives, and provide legal support during the formalisation process. In 2014, a mining contract between Barrick and AMACHIC was signed, and in 2016 AMACHIC was recognized as a legal association of coal miners in accordance with Peruvian law. Upon completion of this process, a formal meeting was held with the vice minister of mines to grant the resolution that concluded the formalisation process’.

Javier Durand Planas boasts over two decades of experience operating internationally throughout Latin America, the US, Canada and the UK, while based in Peru. In addition to this, he has received professional and academic qualifications from a number of highly prestigious institutions including the Yale School of Management, the University of Lima and the University of the Pacific. He has been part of Hochschild Group companies since 1994, holding a succession of senior roles in both Hochschild Mining and Cementos Pacasmayo, culminating in his current role as general counsel of the latter; he assumed this position in late 2008. He has been at the forefront of a number of major transactions during his time with the Hochschild Group, which have included the IPO of Hochschild Mining’s shares on the London Stock Exchange and Cementos Pacasmayo on the New York Stock Exchange, and the most recent of which include the demerger from Cementos Pacasmayo of its phosphate business in 2017. He is or has been member of various corporate and non-profit boards, and he is responsible at Cementos Pacasmayo for four team departments in his current role: the legal and compliance department, the properties and regulatory department, the securities department and the quality, health, safety and environment department. This level of responsibility is emblematic of the high esteem in which his skills are held by the business. In addition to his professional achievements, Durand has carved out an extremely successful extra-curricular niche as a guest speaker and lecturer, speaking on a range of topics including law, business and ethical matters.

April 2017 saw Oscar Eyzaguirre appointed to the role of legal director for Peru at Credicorp Capital, a financial services firm that has undergone a number of changes within its legal function since Eyzaguirre’s arrival. Showing his capabilities, he has recently undertaken an expanded remit within the firm and now occupies the general counsel and corporate secretary position. As part of his new responsibilities, he has sourced and brought in new legal talent as well as overseen a reorganisation campaign. He describes his new look team as being ‘complete’, and is now working on ‘consolidating the new legal department by establishing internal procedures’ including small working teams for the most challenging matters as well as the promotion of ‘more interaction between the legal staff in order to take full advantage of the expertise of everyone in the team’. Eyzaguirre started his career practicing at Peruvian law firm Miranda & Amado, and this period included work on the closing of highly complex transactions and the establishment in Peru of two of the largest banks in the world: Deutsche Bank and HSBC.

Hector Figari Costa joined Microsoft in 2013 in the capacity of legal and corporate affairs lead for Peru, and in July 2017 was promoted to his current position, where he also covers Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay. He began his private practice stint in corporate law firm Muñiz, Ramírez, Pérez-Taiman & Olaya, in the areas of antitrust, unfair competition, intellectual property, telecoms and e-commerce, among others, working his way up to become a partner. After being at the law firm for 15 years he moved to a legal counsel position at Microsoft Peru and after four years, became the CELA lead for the South Subsidiary, covering Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay. Over the years, Figari has had to hone and develop his commercial skills, due to the fact that some technology aspects of the business are related to legal aspects. ‘As a result, I have become not only a legal advisor, but also a key component on the selling process. Another important aspect is the need of technical knowledge’, adds Figari, something which has been important for him as an in-house counsel to provide relevant advice. During his time at Microsoft, Figari has applied technology solutions and tools based on the cloud to his day-to-day legal activities in order to promote new ways of working for lawyers. He says this promotes efficiency and also generates familiarity and trust in the technology from the legal audience. Over the course of his career, Figari has been involved on the negotiation of the contracts with critical clients, in both the commercial and public sectors, on transformational deals as well as the promotion of positive policies for technological innovation.

In September 2015 and after working for 15 years as Belmond Peru’s general counsel, Raúl Galdo took on a new challenge at Viettel Perú by joining a new-comer in the Peru’s telecom industry as director of the legal and human resources departments and deputy general manager – a broader role than a general counsel. In early 2017, his role was expanded when he was also appointed to lead the corporate sales department. On the legal side of his current position, he focuses his practice on the design of regulatory strategy and the most relevant corporate transactions, working for the company before the regulator (OSIPTEL) and the Ministry of Transports and Communications (MTC). Galdo also leads and mentors 25 lawyers in the different legal areas in which the company is involved. Galdo was fundamental to the legal work for the construction of the longest fibre optic network in Peru, which allowed Viettel to compete successfully in a very competitive market and bring high technology and excellent services to Peru, especially to remote and lower income areas of the country. Under his management, the social responsibility involved in this work has also been recognised at prestigious industry awards. Galdo has organised the legal department along corporate legal, regulatory and infrastructure lines. He has also been behind empowering the lawyers of the branches around Peru, reducing their dependency on Lima´s head office. Amongst his most successful litigations and transactions at Viettel Peru, Galdo has been behind the successful litigation against the Ministry of Transports and Communications in a case surrounding the imposition of a tax for every mobile line activated by Viettel Peru. Galdo has also been conferred with individual recognition at industry awards in previous years.

Rodrigo Manrique García assumed his current position in 2013, after being hired by Olympic Perú in 2010 to establish the internal legal function. Bringing substantial change and improvement to the oil and gas company has been a standout achievement for Manrique: ‘I was hired to create the internal legal department and it has created a significant change in the risk and contingency management of the company as well as the relation with the regulatory agencies, Peruvian Oil Agency Perupetro and the Ministry of Energy and Mines’. Before the implementation of internal legal management, all legal issues were outsourced with many unsatisfactory outcomes and the legal expenses were significant, as there were ‘problems with communication and coordination of the legal strategy’ needed for the company’s interests. Combating this issue, during his last three years as general counsel, Manrique has changed the scope of participation of the company legal area from a reactive organisation to a preventive one reducing liabilities and contingencies by the millions. He is also having an active participation in several procedures involving project management, community relationship, environmental and regulatory permits, and initial stage of negotiation with providers, minor and major contractual procedures as well as negotiations with Peruvian Oil Agency, Perupetro. Under his leadership and his inside knowledge of the oil and gas industry, the team aim to support the company from an early stage in the procedure areas within Olympic with the goal of better management and prevention of legal risk. The recent changes in the regulation of environmental protection, anti-corruption and money laundry have increased the need for implementation of several controls and policies that secure the activities of the corporate group and eliminate the risk that is involved in these worldwide problems. Some of his most noteworthy transactions include the acquisition of an Oklahoma based company with oil interests in Peru, an operation that amounted to $5m approximately; participation in the development of projects for the installation of major components at production facilities in Olympic’s oil fields such as a $30m gas turbine generator; as well of projects of for the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons. Manrique also led the purchase and transfer of the oil tanker ‘Olympic Star’ in China in an operation that amounted to approximately $12m.

Juan Felipe García Montúfar Sarmiento joined Anglo American, one of the world’s top mining companies, in 2012 as the legal manager for Peru – a position that involves overlooking the provision of legal services for their projects in Peru and explorations divisions. Over the years his area of operation has expanded beyond Peru, and he is now in charge of providing legal support for explorations in certain Latin-American jurisdictions such as Colombia and Ecuador. García has been behind the planning and execution of the revised permitting plans for Quellaveco, the most significant Greenfield project in the Anglo American portfolio. He has also been behind the reorganisation of the legal department, making it a more robust and respected function: ‘My work consisted of changing the department’s mentality to be more business-oriented and to introduce the concept of a culture of service, which led to our clients commenting that there has been a transformation in the way legal services are being provided to them’, says García. Prior to his current role he joined Rubio Leguia Normad, and worked with them in the finance and mining practice areas for 15 years, being promoted from associate to senior partner.

Canadian bank Scotiabank offers a range of services in Peru, including retail banking services including savings accounts, debit cards and loans as well as business banking products such as purchase financing, leasing, insurance and financial advice. Francisco Rivadeneira Gastañeta is the current vice president – general counsel, compliance and corporate secretary of the company, and is one of Peru’s foremost in-house legal experts in the banking and financial services sector. Leading a team of professionals distributed across five specialised units (for a total of approximately 70 persons) and with a track record of providing business-centric counsel to his colleagues, he is in constant dialogue with important businesspeople including the board of directors and the general management of all areas of the bank. Some of the main issues Rivadeneira deals with include the management and supervision of proceedings brought to defend the bank’s interests or achieve a better debt recovery. He has also been influential in many important deals on behalf of the bank, overseeing the legal aspects of the merger between Banco Wiese Sudameris and Banco Sudamericano. Rivadeneira was also a key figure in the notable acquisition processes of Banco del Trabajo and pension management fund Profuturo, as well as in their integration to Scotia Group in Peru.

Award-winning legal counsel Milagros Gómez Sánchez Cannani became Kimberly Clark’s legal and corporate affairs director for the Andean region (Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela) in 2015. Providing legal and corporate affairs counselling with a strategic vision, as well as direct and permanent support to the whole company, Gómez is said to have decisively contributed to the achievement of key financial objectives and to strengthening of the compliance culture of the organisation across the Andean region. ‘Due to my leadership I have had a very fruitful interaction with the business, its leaders and other functional areas even in complex and challenging situations’, Gómez says. ‘I was able to align the Andean and local legal department´s goals with the goals of the business which allowed the Andean legal department to be recognised by the business as an area that generates value’. In recognition of her provision of consistently strong legal advice and development of a compliance culture within the business, Gómez has recently received a number of professional accolades, including first place in the “Compliance & Corporate Good Practices Specialization” at Universidad del Pacífico in 2017 and “Kultura de Performance Kimberly-Clark” award due to the successful legal advice and leadership on two commercial projects in 2016. Gómez’s previous legal career include five-year tenures at Yanbal International and Mondelēz International, and an eight-year stint in private practice at Estudio Grau Abogados. After the research deadline of this publication, Gomez started working as Peru legal manager for Back Backus AB Inbev.

Beginning her current role in October 2012, Arabella Gonzales Netto has since gained a number of important responsibilities, worked on multiple vital transactions and has become a reliable and commercially-focused counsel who is indispensable for the consolidated economic group Grupo Wiese’s business operation. The aforementioned transactions include the restructuring of the group, important M&A deals, and assuming the representation of the companies of the group with stocks listed on the Stock Exchange of Lima. These achievements have come at a time of change within the company, including the company’s CEO role changing hands in 2016 and a consequent new strategy and structure for the firm. Gonzales actively participated in the development and implementation of these plans, including the sale of Seguros Sura e Hipotecaria Sura, jointly with Grupo Sura, to Intercorp Group, which she states was ‘one of Peru’s main economic transactions of 2017 and one that required almost a year of development of strategy, negotiation and implementation’. Further proving her worth in the company’s growing business portfolio, she was critical to the acquisition of a minority stock of holding culinary company Civitano, the acquisition of ordinary shares in the seed financing round of the Peruvian startup, Juntoz.com and a joint investment agreement in a new company constituted together with Frialsa Group Mexico, a transaction that ‘took over three years to complete’. For Grupo Wiese, 2017 was ‘the year of redefinition of the group strategy and structure’, and Gonzales held a ‘main role’ in several aspects of this change. She was central to a number of initiatives, including ‘the review of a more efficient structure of the holding companies for future exit transactions, the structuration and constitution of the private equity fund to consolidate all new investments of the group, the transfer of all the staff and operations of the group’. Gonzales also assisted with the ‘constitution and stock market listing of four new holding companies of the group, [gave] advice and participation in the projects of risk management, the formalisation of procedures, manuals and politics, [and] the implementation of a compliance system and adjustment of the company to standards of best practices’. A nominating source had the following to say of Gonzales’s attributes: ‘During this challenging year, [Gonzales] has shown a lot of hard and soft skills to manage in excellent manner all the internal and external challenges for her firm’.

General manager for legal services and compliance at BBVA Banco Continental Enriqueta González Pinedo has had a varied career that has included public and private positions. The consistent theme throughout her career has been success, and she has managed to achieve this during her time with both the Superintendencia de Banca y Seguros (SBS) (a state agency which played a major role in Peru’s response to the Latin American financial crisis of 1998) and BBVA Continental, whom she joined in 2000. While it is difficult for González to pick out particular career highlights, she mentions her ‘participation in drafting the Bank Act’ as among these. She also describes her role at SBS in general as having ‘made her an expert in banking regulation’, and contributed to her success significantly. Alongside this, González considers that ‘one cannot talk enough about good corporate governance’, and is proud of her record as ‘a promoter and manager in this area since 2002’, when the company approved its “code of good corporate governance”, which is still in place and constantly being improved upon. In terms of major projects, she also has an impressive record, and details just some of her career statistics: ‘In May 2017, after almost ten years of litigation, a lawsuit filed against the bank by COVISE seeking approximately S/286m was won by us, returning a reduced amount of S/80m. As well as this, over the course of this entire year, we have issued S/708m soles in domestic currency corporate, BAF, for placement on local and international financial markets’.

Following a successful private practice career, during which she operated at associate and senior associate level for the Estudio Grau, Hernández & Rosselló and Hernández & Cía law firms respectively, Gianina Gotuzzo Oliva made the transition to in-house legal work in 2010. At this time she moved to Intercorp Group and has been with entities of the group of companies ever since. Now general counsel for Inteligo Group and Inteligo SAB, Gotuzzo provides some insight into the highlights of her time as an in-house counsel: ‘During the past seven years as an in-house lawyer I have led several key transactions at Intercorp Group. One of these was the IPO of InRetail Peru Corporation, in which I had to work with several CEOs of different companies since InRetail Peru is the holding company of all the companies we have in the retail sector. I also led the in-house team for refinancing three bonds we had in the market and the issuance of three new secured notes in the international market under Rule 144A/Reg S. These transactions gave me the opportunity to demonstrate my organisational and leading skills as well as the recognition of my peers and superiors’. Alongside this, she has had a tangible effect on the development of the legal function as a whole at the company. ‘Upon joining’, she explains, ‘I started doing due diligence on what I received from the former general counsel, and started having weekly meetings to follow up all the pending issues with different areas. With the help of human resources we developed a training plan for the employees, first understanding the FAQ’s of each area and giving them training lectures, or preparing videos with key legal information needed for their everyday work. As head of the legal area we give expert advice and timely solutions to our internal clients, focusing on preventing and managing the legal risks of the company’.

For almost a decade, Rodolfo Grados Flores has provided outstanding legal advice and commercially-minded support to RIMAC Seguros, the leading company in the Peruvian insurance market. Within the scope of his current role, regulation and corporate legal manager, he is responsible for the legal counsel and general contracting of the company. One nominating source was particularly impressed with Grados’ managerial skill, explaining that he possesses ‘great leadership’ in his command of the regulation and corporate legal department. Credited for helping boost RIMAC Seguros’ business potential and its overall number of business interests, he is also praised by nominators for ‘showing a lot of skills working with new investments regulations in order to increase the RIMAC investment portfolio’.

In Peru, South African gold producer Gold Fields operates the Cerro Corona mine, which began in mid-2008 and is now proudly one of the most recognised copper and gold mining operations in the country. Legal and compliance vice president for the Americas Region, Juan Jose Granda Paseta has been at Gold Fields in Peru since 2006 and has thus not only been part of its major developments but also acquired an in-depth understanding of its business operations according to nominators. As such he has recently been assisting the company’s plans to expand the pit in the Cerro Corona copper-gold operation. Prior to his position at Gold Fields, Granda was a junior partner at law firm Estudio Peña, Lozano, Faura & Asociados for almost seven years. Before that he was an associate at Estudio Noriega & Asociados Abogados between 1994 and 2000.

Edgard Guerrero has been the general counsel of global conglomerate, Siemens, in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia since 2014. Before Siemens, he was the general counsel for IBM in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia for more than ten years. He accumulates more than 20 years of international experience working with multinational companies in Peru, the US and Chile. When he joined Siemens in 2014, he reorganised the whole team and personally involved himself in the selection of all the new team members, putting together an agile and experienced team that he takes much pride in. He is passionate about the business, people development and high performance teams and thanks to Guerrero the current perception of the business and other areas of the company regarding the legal department is now very positive and valued. Very early on in his career Guerrero had the opportunity to lead the legal department of the Chinese Oil Company that operated in northern Peru. While working for this company he applied for a scholarship to study abroad and ended up receiving the Fulbright Scholarship in 1997 to study a Master’s in Laws in Energy and Environment in the US. ‘Such experience abroad allowed me to acquire not only knowledge, but also multicultural experience, and my studies opened up opportunities for me to live abroad and work for important multinational companies not only in the US but in Chile and Peru’. Guerrero is a considered a very experienced business orientated general counsel with excellent communication and leadership competences – especially in global and cross-cultural environments.

Established in 2007, Inkia Energy (formerly IC Power) is a transnational company dedicated to the generation and distribution of electricity with operations in 10 Latin American countries, including Peru, where it operates 2200MW of thermoelectric and hydroelectric power through four plants. Regional legal manager since 2015, Roxana Guzmán is responsible for providing corporate legal advice including regulatory compliance, negotiation and formulation of contracts, corporate management, labour issues, dispute resolution and management of social conflicts. A member of the leadership team, she has helped develop strategic projects such as the power purchase agreement, EPC contract and concession contract for the installation of a $110m wind generation plant in the Dominican Republic and various tenders across Latin America to offer the installation of power generation plants. She also assisted on negotiating EPC contracts, share purchase agreements, shareholder agreements, investment agreements, due diligence of potential partners, for participation in the aforementioned bids. Her comprehensive legal direction in Peru has allowed for raising the legal strategy and execute preparatory acts for an international arbitration, defend the interests of the company in legal actions brought against the company and those brought before the COES, review labour scheme related issues and the implementation of an anti-corruption and money laundering prevention model. Prior to Inkia Energy, Guzmán was general counsel at Maple Energy since 1994, an upstream and downstream hydrocarbons company listed in the AIM section of the London Stock Market. Having worked in Peru’s legal market since 1994, she is a highly regarded and well-respected professional amongst her peers.

With a total of 23 years of experience accumulated in various legal positions (of which 17 years were dedicated to companies linked to the energy sector), Manuel Antonio Holguín Rojas is frequently mentioned among Peru’s most esteemed corporate lawyers. Described as a lawyer of ‘great quality and professional proficiency’ by his colleagues, Holguín stands out with his skills related to the analysis and resolution of complex problems, as well as his ample ethical and moral solvency. Currently Holguín navigates the legal and regulatory functions at Distriluz, a major Peruvian utility group with a presence in 12 of the 24 departments of the country. Holguín directs and provides extensive operational legal support to the five companies within the group and also serves as a secretary to the board of directors. Prior to joining Distriluz in 2012, he worked as a legal advisor at Peru’s Sociedad Nacional de Mineria, Petroleo y Energia (National Society of Mining, Petroleum and Energy), where he coordinated the electric and hydrocarbon legal committees and served as an alternative coordinator of the sector committees in the energy industry. Holguín’s previous career also features senior legal and secretarial roles at FONAFE, EGASA and Empresa De Generacion Electrica San Gaban.

Christiann A. Hudtwalcker Zegarra currently serves as the general counsel for Telefónica Perú, a Spanish multinational broadband and telecommunications provider with operations in Asia, Europe, and North, Central and South America. Hudtwalcker joined Telefónica in August 2006 as director of legal advice and has excelled in this position for 11 years; leading to his promotion to his current position as general counsel in January 2018. Hudtwalcker is recognised as a speaker on telecommunication social initiatives in the region to bring improved services to low income areas. Prior to his role at Telefonica he was a senior associate at Benites, Forno & Ugaz from September 1995 until August 2006.

A close confidant to the most senior professionals within Peruvian insurance company RIMAC Seguros, Luis Javier Venturo Urbina is not only the lead lawyer in the group as evidenced by his title of executive vice president of the company’s legal and regulatory division, he is also involved in corporate strategy and business planning. First joining the RIMAC company in June 2006, Venturo worked as legal manager of the legal division and regulation for almost seven years until January 2013, presiding over a number of high-profile matters of extreme importance within the highly regulated insurance market. Accruing specialist knowledge in legal, regulatory and corporate senses, Venturo was awarded a directorship role in 2016 and is frequently relied upon for his pragmatic and commercially-focused advice. An in-house legal and business specialist, Venturo started his in-house career after a successful period in private practice, achieving the position of partner of Estudio Céspedes & Venturo.

Sheila La Serna Jordan joined Profuturo AFP, the Peruvian pension fund manager and subsidiary of Scotiabank, in April 2015 as head of market regulation; and following just six months in the role was appointed as chief legal and compliance officer. A firm believer in the legal team’s role as a guardian of the reputational integrity of the business, La Serna states: ‘High ethical standards are of paramount importance to in-house lawyers. In house lawyers should not only be concerned about coping with handling operational, but also reputational risk’. Besides promptly dealing with all legal and compliance issues encountered by the company, La Serna’s two year stint at Profuturo AFP is defined by a flawless transactional record. Shortly after joining the company, La Serna participated in the financing of the Lima Metro Line 2 Project, one of the major infrastructure projects in the country. ‘The deal involved the issuance of senior secured notes under Rule 144A and Regulation S for an amount of $1.15bn. Pofuturo participated in such an investment through the “Fideicomiso 2”, an infrastructure trust which is wholly funded by three pension funds including Profuturo AFP’, she says. In addition to her involvement with the investment desk of Profuturo´s pension funds, La Serna contributed to her company receiving an award recently for Sound Corporate Governance practices by the Lima Stock Exchange. In 2017, La Serna received substantial praise for her contribution to a $1.4m arbitration case victory.

Established in 1991, Banco Interamericano De Finanzas (BanBif) has since expanded to include almost 90 offices across Peru, and has relied upon excellent internal support to achieve this impressive rate of growth in the competitive banking sector. Its legal function has made an indispensable contribution to this, for which vice president of legal affairs Victor Larrea can take a large amount of credit. With over a decade of experience at the company, Larrea also boasts robust academic credentials, having taught at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and the University of Lima. A measure of Larrea’s business acumen is the fact that he has acted as a member of the board of directors of a number of companies, notably CONASEV.

Maria Lizzy Massa joined multinational beauty products sales business Belcorp in 2002 as a lawyer working out of the company’s Lima headquarters. She has since gained additional responsibilities and currently serves as director of corporate and legal affairs at Belcorp. Massa leads a team of 60 people located in four separate countries and is responsible for handling legal and regulatory issues encountered by the company in Latin America and the USA, on top of the management of legal matters for the Group’s holding company. She is also tasked with dealing with a variety of non-legal issues, including government relations, corporate communications and social responsibility. Massa formerly served within the cabinet of advisors to the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Peru, as well as an associate at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. Massa is a graduate of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú and holds an LLM degree from Columbia Law School. To further her commercial understanding, she has also recently completed an executive development program in business administration and management from Northwestern University.

San Isidro-based general counsel Alvaro Loredo oversees the legal function of the multinational conglomerate 3M across Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru. Drawing on his vast experience in corporate law, Loredo supports the full spectrum of activities of the company in the Andean region, which include the manufacture and distribution of home care, abrasive, chemical, telecommunications, medical, and forest products. Prior to making his move in-house by joining 3M in 2013, Loredo served as an associate at Peruvian law firms Lazo, de Romaña & Gagliuffi Abogados and Santistevan de Noriega & Asociados, Abogados. Loredo graduated from Universidad de Lima and is described by nominators as a proven expert in commercial litigation, corporate negotiations and employment law.

Silvana Lourdes Pérez Yalán is an executive with over 17 years of professional experience in legal, management and consultancy work at Peruvian and transnational enterprises. Pérez currently serves as the chief compliance officer and legal manager for Komatsu Mitsui Maquinarias Perú (KMMP) a Peruvian joint venture that provides heavy equipment and electric generators for the mining and construction sectors. In this position, she provides legal, corporate management and risk prevention support nationwide, reporting to the executive vice president and board of directors. As the chief compliance officer, Pérez is responsible for the monitoring and control of the compliance program in the corporation as well as all its subsidiaries within the country. When she joined KMMP, her initial objective was to restructure the legal and compliance area by speciality to meet the global requirements of the company: ‘In this way, I have implemented a compliance management system, with mechanisms of due knowledge of the customer, provider and the employee, reporting directly to the board of directors since December 2015, which guarantees and certifies that the organisation carries out its activities in a responsible, ethical and legal manner’, she explains. The implementation of this system also seeks to prevent unlawful acts with criminal responsibility. One of her most notable achievements during the last three years include the management of the risks and their controls with success – at the end of the year there was a reduction in legal cases and the contingencies for the corporation of more than 55%. At present, Pérez is focusing on the anti-bribery management system and is keen to pursue her career development in the field of corporate compliance as an important tool to secure sustainable profits of the corporations. ‘My goal is to improve my understanding of corporate compliance that affect the economic agents in the society. Become an expert in corporate law directly linked with compliance in order to contribute efficiently not only to the well-being of the corporation but also of Latin America market by contributing to the creation and installation of ethical business behaviours, that authentically promote competitiveness, sustainability and economic growth in the economy while containing ethical components that target integral development in our society’.

Gloria Irene Loza Murrugarra is an attorney at law graduated from the Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú, and assumed her current position as Avianca’s general counsel for Peru in October 2017 after receiving her Master’s degree at the University of California in Los Angeles. Loza started her career as a trainee at Citibank Headquarters in Peru, where she learnt how companies work and the role of stakeholders around investment projects, which then led her onto pursuing a career as in-house counsel in LATAM Peru then LAN Peru. Loza joined the company as legal assistant for the legal and compliance department in 2010 and later was appointed as head of aviation and regulatory law in 2015, becoming the youngest legal chief in the department at the time. Soon after she joined Proetica, a non-governmental organisation based in Lima, as the Peruvian Chapter of Transparency International, the global coalition against corruption. ‘I must say that all my professional experience helped me to be a well-rounded attorney, capable of assuming a general counsel position at my age, in major company such as Avianca’, she says. Since the beginning of her career, Loza has been trusted with sophisticated transactions, including negotiations with international partners, where she had to demonstrate clear thinking and the ability to find solutions while representing Peru’s subsidiary interest. ‘Understanding different cultures was the first test to pass and the most important skill to learn in order to know how international transactions work’, explains Loza. Managing a team of legal trainees has also proved to be an excellent experience as it helped develop her soft and personal skills, something she puts into practice by consistently instilling in them enthusiasm, leadership, professionalism and passion for the company.

Juan Luis Valdiviezo Sanchez is legal affairs manager for Pesquera Diamante, which is a Peruvian company dedicated to the production, processing and distribution of a variety of fish-related food products. Presiding over all aspects of the company’s legal agenda, Valdiviezo dispenses accurate, timely and pragmatic advice with regards to the regulatory issues regarding the company’s fishing activities. He has also been an integral part of a number of recent business initiatives including official partnerships with institutions such as the Framework Agreement for Inter-institutional Cooperation with the University of Lima, in order to strengthen ties of technical and scientific cooperation, technology transfer and service provision.

A highly respected lawyer who has proven herself at the highest level of private and public service, as well as in the world of academia, Gianna Macchiavello has been director of legal services for energy giant Repsol’s Peru operations from February 2008. Since 2004, she has worked as deputy minister of justice for the Peruvian justice department (she was chair of the national human rights commission during this time also), and also as director of institutional development at the Liberty and Democracy Institute. This Lima-based think tank is one of Peru’s most prestigious NGOs, and seeks to promote property rights among developing countries; Macchiavello’s position here highlights the esteem in which she is held by her peers not only within the legal world but in the wider Peruvian business and political community. Since working with Repsol, she has been at the forefront of a number of projects as the company seeks to expand its infrastructure and capabilities in the country. Perhaps the most salient in recent months was the announcement in December 2017 that the company’s Sagari natural gas plant has become operational, a milestone that could see production from the field increase by approximately 25%. Macchiavello’s work in driving forward this complex infrastructure project is just one example of her formidable legal, organisational and business capabilities.

SKBergé is a Spanish-Chilean company which operates throughout Latin America, representing a number of the world’s leading vehicle brands. Piero Mainetto Villacorta is an indispensable part of the company’s Peruvian operation as a legal and corporate affairs manager, providing support that enables the subsidiary to enjoy 18% of the market share and an annual billing figure of $600m. Joining the company in 2014, Mainetto was charged with creating an internal legal department from scratch, and of his involvement he states: ‘The main change brought forth as a result of my addition to the team is to involve the legal component as part of the day to day business rather than a separate department that is only consulted post decision-making’. In doing so, he has managed to receive buy-in from all internal departments as well as the support and confidence of SKBergé’s business partners. More successes Mainetto has achieved are connected with the company’s strategic aims; one such instance was the transition of Peugeot’s operation in Peru from its previous distributor to SKBergé, as well as the financial and legal plan of debt recovery worth $7m for dealerships with financial issues. An important part of the SKBergé business surrounds the logistics process for its vehicles, and Mainetto – along with the support of his team – was central to the foundation of Servicios Logísticos Automotrices, a joint venture between SKBergé and logistics company Romero Group. This new company provides logistic services focused in automotive industries to support SKBergé’s demand and any other potential automotive groups, and Mainetto was key in the negotiations surrounding a variety of issues concerning the agreement. The result was the guarantee of an ‘orderly operation regardless of the existence of any standing legal disputes’ and evincing the quality of Mainetto’s work and the team he has assembled, in the process the team ‘did not require the support of external legal counsel’.

As Pro Mujer’s general counsel, Cesar Maita acts as the key advisor to the CEO and to senior leaders on legal, compliance and corporate governance matters for this leading women empowerment non-profit development organisation. Maita joined Pro Mujer in May 2016 as general counsel and brings over 15 years of international in-house legal counsel experience in the microfinance and development sector in Latin America. His career portfolio comprises of having worked at world, Latin America, EMEA and Asian headquarters of major profit and non-profit organisations. Demonstrating his value to the organisation, Maita was recently selected a winner of its internal award for the most extraordinary achievements prize 2017. Prior to joining Pro Mujer, he worked for eleven years at Oikocredit, a Dutch-based international financial development institution focused on empowering women through financing of microfinance institutions and agricultural organisations. Maita holds a law degree from the University of Lima, a LLM in International Business Law from Leiden University, a MBA from HES Amsterdam School of Economics and is currently following a PhD in Anthropology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. He speaks Spanish, English, French and Italian.

As the legal and integrity manager for the ABB subsidiary in Peru, a position she has been in since April 2013, Yesenia Marina Quiroz Zegarra has been key to multiple high-value business agreements on behalf of the Fortune 300-ranked multinational. Highlighting her responsibility for the success of a number of different deals, Quiroz sums up her contribution as working a number of ‘contracts with important companies [in] the mining, construction, hydrocarbons, electric generation and distribution industries’. She has also led and participated in the defence process of ABB surrounding competition issues and ‘the assurance of good corporate governance reflected in the implementation of policies, directives and training’. With a huge array of highlights to choose from over her in-house career thus far, Quiroz is particularly proud of her contribution to ABB’s human resources area, which she ‘conducted for a year and a half’ simultaneously with her legal responsibilities. As well as this, the organisational knowledge she has acquired of ABB’s business units – with whom she has constant contact and whose goals she understands explicitly – is another string to her bow, as each business area involves the legal department in its operations and management to prevent and minimise risks. A forward-thinking and dynamic lawyer, Quiroz has implemented internal processes such as communication software that groups legal and integrity queries together, which has led to the team ‘being duly informed as most important users share information in a friendly way’.

As the most senior lawyer and leader of the legal team at Delosi, Pamela Marqués Reátegui has the remit of ensuring all legal and compliance matters related to the business group are conducted correctly. Delosi is a business group that operates eleven brands, many of them internationally renowned. The franchises in Peru include food and beverage chains Starbucks, Pinkberry, Chili’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Madam Tusan, Olive Hotel Chicama Surf, Mad Science and Central Parking. Ensuring these brands are being protected to the fullest extent and showing great flexibility in her work, Marqués came to Delosi from private practice, where she was a lawyer at Estudio Muñiz, Ramírez, Pérez-Taiman & Olaya for over two years before joining the Delosi business and ascending to chief of the legal department in July 2013.

Daniel Martínez González’s in-house legal career began in November 2008 when he joined Arca Continental, the second largest Coca-Cola bottler in Latin America. ‘I started as legal counsel doing literally everything’, he explains. ‘As we were [the] only two lawyers in the company, I had to attend to the day-to-day issues, collaborate with the creation of the foundations of the legal department of Arca Continental and address inorganic growth through M&A transactions’. Over the next eight years, Martínez has had the chance to contribute directly to the exponential growth of the company across Latin America by supporting a plethora of strategic transactions, the most recent of which was forming a $2.7bn joint venture with Coca-Cola Refreshments across Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru as well as Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arkansas in the US. Equipped with substantial experience in the sector, as well as an MBA qualification attained from IPADE Business School, one of Mexico’s most prestigious educational establishments, Martínez took charge of the company’s legal function in South America. Working out of Acra Continental’s Peru office, Martínez oversees all legal matters relating to the company’s beverages and snacks business units in South America (Argentina, Ecuador and Peru), including business combinations, cross-borders transactions, corporate governance and general business law affairs. Besides supporting the company’s growth plans in the region, Martínez is in the process of implementing fundamental changes to the internal organisation of the legal department. ‘It’s a work in progress that is starting to show results,’ he states. ‘Recently Fitch Ratings has upgraded Corporacion Lindley’s (our Peruvian bottler) long-term foreign and local currency issuer default rating (IDR) to ‘A-’ from ‘BBB+’. The rating upgrade reflects Fitch’s view of further strengthening of operational, strategic and legal ties between Lindley and Arca Continental. Those legal ties are part of the work that we are carrying out’.

Jorge Meneses oversees multiple jurisdictions in his role as assistant general counsel for Latin America and the Caribbean at reinsurance solutions business Guy Carpenter & Company, with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia. Mexico, Peru and Miami as part of his regular responsibilities. His career prior to his current role, including periods at Liberty Mutual Colombia and Delima Marsh, provided him with the ideal insurance background to succeed in his current role, which he assumed in 2015. Meneses counts the improvements he has made to the various legal teams that he has been part of among his chief career highlights, highlighting his collaborative outlook towards his role. He provides some further detail into how he has positively affected the legal function at his current company: ‘As well as centralising the legal function of the legal department across the Latin American and Caribbean region, I have directed the implementation and standardisation of the corporate governance model in the region and optimised of the value proposition of the legal department in the region. This situation has generated excellent results in terms of service and quality’.

Most recently promoted in 2016, Luis Miguel Arce is the legal manager and assumes the role of head of the legal department at Hudbay Peru, the Peruvian subsidiary of Canadian miner Hudbay Minerals, which Arce explains involves ‘oversight of legal and compliance matters for the South American region’. Able to point to a number of career highlights, Arce is particularly proud of his involvement in the design and implementation of all contractual transactions related to a $1.7bn investment effort towards construction of the Constancia Mine in Cusco – one of the largest copper reserves in the world. In doing so, he covered ‘large surface land purchases, sustainable development involving local farming communities, lender structured financing; construction, power, engineering and EPCM agreements; investment protection agreements with the Peruvian government such as stability agreements, inter-institutional cooperation agreements with various government entities; and strategic alliances with third parties’. Arce undertakes a comprehensive international remit for the company’s mining exploration interests, and in 2017 took the lead in ‘anti-corruption compliance related matters at country level, assuming the role of compliance officer and becoming closely involved in the design and implementation of Hudbay Peru’s corporate compliance program’. In addition to these transactions, Arce takes the lead in the optimisation of his legal function, implementing specialist software for mining related legal obligations, discussion forums and a corporate compliance program. A variety of transactions and litigations accounting for a large amount of revenue are covered by Arce, including complex commercial disputes, financing matters, labour matters and service contracts. In addition to his in-house legal career, Arce is active in the academic field as a speaker in local and international events as well as having a previous role as a professor of civil law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, one of the largest and most prestigious law schools in the country. He states of his team: ‘I believe it is worth mentioning that while the legal team at Hudbay Peru is young, we are very dedicated and resilient, gaining broad experience from the day to day diverse legal matters of a large mining commercial operation such as Constancia. [We are] able to provide efficient, adequate and timely response to the legal needs of our company’.

Currently serving as the in-house counsel at Cementos Pacasmayo, Carlos J. Molinelli Mateo brings his extensive experience in corporate law and corporate governance, financial, mining, securities and stock market, as well as his specialisation in mining law from the Lima bar and his participation from the management program for lawyers at the Yale School of Management. He has been central to integrating teams for Cementos Pacasmayo’s IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in 2012 and for the issue for the international market of corporate bonds for $350m in 2013, the first Cementos Pacasmayo local corporate bonds program in 2006 and several corporate reorganisation processes. During his career, he has led the legal aspects for several debt programs for more than $800m. His professional practice is based on legal strategic planning and legal consulting ensuring the compliance of the applicable legal and regulatory frameworks in all corporate and commercial decisions whilst avoiding legal contingencies with the stakeholders. His professional practice is characterised by privileging ethics, transparency, good practises and good faith in business for the complete achievement of corporate objectives in the most efficient way possible. Molinelli is praised for developing working teams, promoting their consolidation and effectiveness. He ensures they are committed to participative leadership for the achievement of corporate objectives that are aligned with the personal interests of each team member. Prior to his current role, between 1995 and 2004, he was the manager of the tax and legal services division at PwC. As part of this role he was in charge of the legal corporate consulting services provided by the firm, integrating leading multidisciplinary teams to face difference challenges in order to satisfy the needs of a great pool of clients. He has also developed his professional experience in several-well known law firms in Lima.

Ernesto Montagne joined the multinational container terminal operating company APM Terminals in February 2016 and has since introduced fundamental changes in the way customer legal claims are handled by the company. Under Montagne’s leadership the company shifted its focus from a “litigating” approach to improving its operations and relationships with clients, resulting in a reduction of legal customer claims by 44% from 2016 to 2017 and a substantial reduction on the amounts claimed. Additionally, Montagne made a meaningful contribution to APM Terminals Callao reaching an amicable solution with the Peruvian government in an ICSID arbitration related to the completion of the first phase of a $460m port modernisation investment in Peru. In his previous role at Nextel Telcomunicações based out of São Paulo in Brazil, Montagne impressed with his negotiations and closure of national roaming services and network leasing agreements with a major operator of mobile services in Brazil that allowed Nextel to achieve national coverage for its high speed mobile voice and data service. During his tenure at the company (1998-2015), Montagne was also part of the team that allowed Nextel to enter as a competitor in the Peruvian telecommunications market, despite facing legal disputes.

When the US-headquartered telecommunications provider CenturyLink acquired Level 3 Communications for $24bn in 2017, it meant Daniel Mora was tasked with overseeing the smooth transition of Level 3’s Peruvian legal operation. Mora had been at Level 3 since 2010 working as legal counsel coordinator and deputy chairman in Venezuela for five years and then in Argentina as regional legal counsel for Latin America until the global merger. Having been in his new position of senior manager legal counsel for Peru since August 2017, Mora has built on his reputation as a fine in-house lawyer, which has not gone unnoticed by private practice lawyers in the country. Originally from Venezuela, he has also been highlighted for seamlessly transitioning across jurisdictions in Latin America with an advanced level of understanding of the different laws relating to the telecommunications sector. Describing his current role, Mora says he is ‘in charge of structuring the legal department, its relations to the company’s business units and its internal processes, as well as concurrently implementing the company’s global policy of using standardised contract documentation in the Venezuelan, Mexican, Costa Rican, and Miami markets’. He has recently worked on regulatory matters for the Venezuela and Mexico entities and advised on the legal processes in Latin America after the merger of Global Crossing and Level 3 and then the same for Level 3 and CenturyLink merger. Describing the internal changes he has made to the company, Mora says, ‘I have led, together with the legal team, on integrating the culture of ethical compliance, global processes and strategies in Latin America’. He adds, ‘I have achieved efficiency in strategic decision-making within the legal framework of each country in Latin America, minimising the risks in local markets that are presented in each country to my office’.

The current general counsel of Banco de Crédito del Perú, the largest bank in the country, Guillermo J. Morales-Valentín has had a highly successful career to reflect on. A financial services legal specialist, Morales-Valentín was general counsel of Banco Santander Central Hispano Perú and Grupo Santander Perú between 2000 and 2007, accruing an enviable level of experience in the sector during the process. In 2007, he moved to Banco de Crédito del Perú, where he was first employed as head of the legal department before assuming his current role in 2010. The steady expansion of his responsibilities continues to this day; he has recently been appointed as general counsel of Credicorp, the holding company of Banco de Crédito del Perú, while retaining his current role. Morales-Valentín lists a number of highlights when discussing his career: ‘Firstly, my involvement in many M&A and financing transactions made by Credicorp around the region in the last ten years; secondly, my role as general counsel of the many companies held by Credicorp in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Panama; and finally my prior position as general counsel in Banco Santander Perú and Grupo Santander Perú, which gave me the experience to deal with an international group’.

Claudia Drago Morante, joined Graña y Montero in 1997 and has been the chief legal and corporate affairs officer since 2015. Graña y Montero is a Peruvian Group that controls 23 subsidiaries that provide engineering and construction, infrastructure, real estate and technical services in Latin America with permanent operations in Peru, Colombia and Chile. Morante oversees the legal, brand and sustainability areas. She previously held the position of chief legal officer from 2007 to 2015 and had previously served as legal counsel of Graña y Montero since 1997. Morante pursued postgraduate studies in finance and corporate law at ESAN, received a postgraduate diploma Tecnologico de Monterrey and completed the management program for lawyers at Yale School of Management. Morante also currently serves as the secretary to the board of directors and as the company’s stock exchange representative to the Lima Stock Exchange.

Mariana Olivares currently works as legal counsel for Sodexo Perú, where she also serves as head of the labour relationship department and legal SPOC (single point of contact) for the energy and resources area in Latin America. Sodexo Group is the worldwide leader in quality of life services, backed by nearly 425,000 employees in 80 countries across the globe. In Peru, Sodexo leads its category, with approximately 5,000 employees and more than $120,000 in contract value per year under management. Olivares joined Sodexo Perú in 2010 and has been legal manager since 2015. She leads a legal function that provides support across all areas of the company, including business development, finance, human resources, operational matters and corporate affairs. She is also in charge of negotiating long term agreements with Sodexo´s clients in different economic sectors and industries. Additionally, Olivares is member of the country leadership committee and the company’s ethics committee. She is involved in implementing diversity and inclusion policies and actively participates as volunteer in different activities for “Stop Hunger” in order to contribute to both local community development and fight hunger and malnutrition. Olivares is a firm believer that the in-house lawyer’s objective is to ‘to provide high quality services – with high standards of ethics – in order to contribute to the company’s mission. To achieve those goals, you must work closely with your business partners (internal and external clients), understand their needs and provide an outstanding customer service with an effective communication about the risks and legal issues involved in any decision’. Before joining Sodexo, Olivares worked in the corporate and M&A practice of Muñiz Law Firm from 2003 to 2009.

Antonio Olórtegui Marky is an in-house lawyer with strong knowledge in regulatory, competence, aeronautics and compliance expertise. Olórtegui currently performs as corporate affairs, legal and compliance director for LATAM Airlines – Perú, where he has been working for more than 10 years, being labor chief, legal head, legal manager and recently assigned as corporate affairs director, being the first attorney to take on in that field in the company. Leading the team for more than nine years has created several important moments in his professional career. Under Olórtegui’s management, the legal and compliance Department has managed to become true allies of the internal customers, becoming partners and leaders in the negotiation with new commercial allies, anticipating the internal requirements. Olórtegui and his team is responsible for implementing the “Code of Ethics and Transparency of the Civil Aviation Operators of Peru”. This document has been prepared with the support of the Aeronautical Authority of Peru and the work of PROÉTICA, part of Transparency International. Besides working in LATAM, Olórtegui also performs as director in the National Confederation of Private Business Institutions (CONFIEP), the largest and most important association of private companies in Peru, as well as director of AETAI – Peru, the Association that brings together the most important air transport companies of the world in the local operation.

Daphne Zagal Otiniano has more than 15 years of professional legal experience, a majority of which has been spent at prestigious companies in the telecoms, financials and energy sectors. Beginning her career with Superintendencia de AFP (now Superintendencia de Banca, Seguros del Perú) she gained significant experience operating in the pension sector before moving to telecoms with BellSouth Peru and later energy with Shell Peru and Suez Energy Peru. In 2006, Zagal first started working for ING in Peru and then in Sura Perú (when Sura purchased ING´s pension business all over Latin America in 2011), where she is now of all corporate legal affairs, corporate governance and compliance of all Sura Group companies in Peru as part of her responsibilities as legal and compliance vice president. Zagal counts her appointment to this role as one of her personal career highlights, relishing the opportunity to lead a team of 12 lawyers, and goes into some of the improvements to the company’s internal capabilities that she has spearheaded: ‘Together with my team, I was first to put in place the corporate governance area, which had a strong positive impact on the company and its stakeholders. I also developed the compliance area which has had a similar effect’. Zagal has also had immense success on projects with an external focus: ‘I was responsible for the acquisition of 50% AFP Horizonte ($250m equity); this transaction was categorised as the best deal of Peru in 2013’, she explains. ‘I was also responsible for the acquisition of a 70% stake in Seguros Sura and Hipotecaria Sura ($145m equity) and later on, in 2017 I was responsible for the sale of these two companies for almost double the price ($268m equity). This last transaction was categorised as the best deals in Latin America (based upon a Transactional Track Record report by Ontier)’.

Eduardo Paseta started his career in 2005 at private practice Peruvian law firm Osterling, gaining experience addressing legal issues related to environmental and natural resources matters – something that would serve him well later in his career. In 2006, Paseta joined Compañia Minera Antamina, a product of a joint venture between four leading companies in the worldwide mining industry (BHP Billiton, Glencore, Teck and Mitsubishi Corporate). Serving in its last position as legal and regulatory superintendent, Paseta worked at Antamina for almost nine years, until January 2015. It was then when he joined Marcobre as legal manager, which owns the Mina Justa project, a large-scale copper project in Peru that represents the major project of BRECA Group, one of the largest business conglomerates in Peru. Then, in July 2015 Paseta moved to Minsur, part of the BRECA Group, where he has the responsibility to ensure the legal and regulatory compliance for the operational units of its mining division such as San Rafael, Pucamarca, Pisco Smelter and Raura. He also covers exploration projects and supervising the legal aspects of Marcobre. During his time at Minsur, Paseta has led the involvement of the legal department in the decision making process of strategic and important corporate affairs and has promoted a preventive culture avoiding contingencies and adding value to the company. In his experience of major operations, Paseta worked on the Antamina expansion project, which required an investment of $1.2bn in 2010 and 2011. In addition, he was involved in the development of an important project for Minsur’s operation called San Rafael, the project consisted of the re-utilisation of mining tailings from an old deposit to extract tin – the investment required a total investment of around $200m. He is working on the pre-feasibility and feasibility study of Mina Justa copper project and is currently participating in its project finance which will require an investment of about $1.3bn. In addition, Paseta actively participates in the Peruvian National Society of Mining, Oil and Energy, a business organisation constituted as a non-profit association, which associates legal entities related to mining, hydrocarbons and electric activities. This entails treating relevant aspects for the mining industry and providing technical and legal opinions for new legislations.

Martha Patricia Espinosa Quimper has been in charge of the legal and compliance department at Compass Group, a leading fund manager in Peru, since 2016. Over this period she has focused her efforts on developing an effective operating system that contributes to integral risk management within the business. ‘By virtue of this and with my team, we implemented the manual of integral risk management, a document that has the purpose of integrating and improving the design and execution of processes, preventing fraud and enhancing the integrity of internal controls in the function to the size of the organisation and the complexity of the operations it performs,’ Espinosa explains. ‘The intention of our team has been not only to focus on maximising the performance of our institutional clients, but also on creating the maximum benefit to the final customers’. A skilled negotiator, in 2016 Espinosa impressed with her contribution to the signing of a trust agreement for debt of roughly $28m. The same year, she took charge of the negotiations corresponding to the sale of a property and land belonging to a real estate fund managed by Compass Group. The property, Centro Empresarial Miracorp, was sold for approximately $47m, with the land subsequently sold for $20m. In a highly impressive 2017, Espinosa contributed to the capital increase of a credit fund, which went from having $10m to $40m committed.

‘Awareness and understanding of [the] regulatory framework and risks that our operations face is one of the most important objectives of my department. Since I assumed the responsibility to lead it there were several changes inside the company in the process, reports, communications, and security of our principal asset: Information. This not only helped to reduce potential errors and omissions, it also helps to our first line of commercial colleagues to include the internal legal and compliance support of the company as one added value of our organization making our value proposition to clients even stronger’, states Benito Pedemonte García, general counsel – vice president of Marsh Rehder in Peru. Starting his legal career in private practice attending to IP and competition law matters, Pedemonte has since developed a strong in-house career that has seen him serve the Peruvian competition agency (INDECOPI) as part of its legal staff and the Marsh Peru business since 2008. He started leading the compliance department in Peru from 2012 and has facilitated the creation of the legal, compliance and public affairs department in Peru since then. With a career that features a number of highlights, Pedemonte’s expert knowledge of the Marsh business complements the ‘wide scope’ of legal nous he has accrued along with the communication skills he has developed. Pedemonte is both a qualified lawyer and possesses an MBA with a change management certification by McCombs School of Business of the University of Texas.

Since August 2014, Renzo Petrozzi Pastor has managed legal affairs for Nestlé Perú, taking on the head of legal position for the Swiss multinational consumer goods company’s subsidiaries in both Peru and Bolivia. A corporate law specialist, Petrozzi will be crucial to the safe navigation of Nestlé Perú through its ambitious business agenda; the parent company has recently invested in new factories and job creation schemes in the four countries that compose the Pacific Alliance trade group – Chile, Mexico, Peru and Colombia. A graduate of the University of Lima and holding an LLM from Fordham University School of Law, Petrozzi is an expert with a tremendous amount of experience in the food and beverage industry. He was previously the senior counsel in the Andean region for Kraft Foods Peru, a position he held for almost eight years, and before that was Praxair Peru’s legal manager for approximately two years.

Antonio Pinilla Cisneros encompasses over 25 years of in-house experience and is highly committed to rendering professional services to all areas of the company. He joined Compañia Minera Antamina (Antamina) in 1999 as legal manager coming from Occidental Peruana, the Peruvian branch of the oil company that operates worldwide. Prior to this role he had the opportunity to work for the Peruvian Tax Authority (SUNAT), in charge of the acquisitions of the different premises for expanding SUNAT operations all around the country. When Pinilla first assumed his role at Antamina, the mine was a project in construction and operated as a non-controlled joint venture, owned at the time by Noranda, (today Glencore), Rio Algom (today BHP Billiton), Teck Cominco (today Teck Resources) and Mitsubishi – it was considered one of the biggest mining projects in Peru and in the world. His initial role as legal manager of the company, was to give legal support to the process of development of the project and concurrently organising the legal department of the company. After completion of the large scale construction, he led the legal completion of the project that allowed the shareholders to recover the guarantees initially granted on behalf of the project. In 2012, Pinilla was promoted to vice president of legal and compliance reporting directly to the president and CEO of the company. He also had the task of developing the corporate compliance organisation of the company, implementing all the internal compliance policies and programs. ‘We have become leaders in the mining practise developing a corporate compliance program inside our organisation’, says Pinilla. From initially only having a single report, Pinilla has been responsible for building the team to 10 lawyers, five trainees, one compliance specialist and two assistants. As part of the executive team of the company he has been able to participate in many of the pivotal decisions of the company. ‘I have learned how the mine, port and tailings operate thus increasing my knowledge in technical aspects. I’m also in charge of the commercial aspects of the insurance which is a great responsibility in a company of this dimension. We have liaised with authorities contributing to the development of the country, supporting the different social programs developed by Antamina’.

CAMPOSOL is the leading agro industrial company in Peru, and has a number of product lines including asparagus (of which it is the largest exporter in the world), piquillo peppers, avocados, mangos and grapes, which are packed fresh, frozen or canned, and exported to a variety of markets across the world. General counsel and corporate affairs manager Alejandro Arrieta Pongo has achieved an exceptional reputation in the Peruvian in-house legal market via a track record of diligent and commercially-focused legal advice. A nominating source explains, ‘[Arrieta] is an impressive lawyer and competent manager for CAMPOSOL’s legal team. [He is] people-oriented and focused on results rather on formal rules’. Based in a number of domestic locations including Lima, Piura and La Liberad, Arrieta’s work also has an international dimension, including jurisdictions across Europe, Asia and the USA. He will be extremely important to the upcoming business strategy of CAMPOSOL, which is exploring the undertaking of an IPO process which it will attempt to complete during the early months of 2018.

Senior legal counsel for energy leader Schneider Electric, Erika Fernández Posada possesses a wide range of abilities and commercial discipline to succeed in the area of energy law. Joining Schneider was a ‘key decision’ in her career path and a few months later she became the legal counsel for Andean Region, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, directly supervising a team of three attorneys and one indirect. In May 2016 she was transferred from Colombia to Peru, where she works as senior legal counsel for the company’s Andean cluster which includes Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, reporting to the legal director for South America. Some of her most impressive commercial transactions in Peru include acting as legal advice and contract manager on significant mining projects throughout the country, winning her recognition by the company’s internal team and directors as a result of the outstanding results obtained. Fernandez’s over ten years of professional experience has been intertwined between law, energy and corporate sector, where she has applied all the knowledge of all disciplines, ratifying her conviction and applying her passion for law and excellence in practice at the private sector; ‘As a corporate attorney, it is essential to know, understand and be immersed in the business world’ adds Posada. Posada has also published a number of articles on illegal mining and transnational corruption, one of them being “Transnational Corruption Perspectives in Andean Countries 2015-2020”. Her role has seen her train more than 300 employees in compliance polices, anti-corruption program and principles of responsibility and adapt global compliance policies to local law and local requirements. ‘As a law professional, my everyday job is based on trust relationships and that is only achieved through impeccable ethics. Making decisions as an in-house attorney based on principles and values affords me a good sleep at night and motivates me to wake up to work in the morning’ concedes Fernandez.

Daniel Quiñones Raffo first joined telecommunications company Entel Perú in 2008 as a telecom infrastructure counsel, working his way up to his current position of chief counsel in 2015. In his current position, Quiñones leads the legal and commercial strategy of the company, and has responsibility for all legal affairs of the company in addition to all corporate matters that span the areas of commercial law, tax and labour amongst others. Quiñones states that – along with colleagues – he helped accomplish the ‘biggest infrastructure deployment in Peruvian history’ which saw the construction of more than 1,000 telecom sites in Peru. Showing his leadership skills, Quiñones led the design of all strategies and policies regarding contracts, permits and licenses to deploy, in doing so ‘avoiding any legal impediments to the company working in a multidisciplinary environment’. Quiñones cites the 2016 adjudication of 30Mhz of the 700MHz band government litigation with a near $300m value as another high-importance matter he worked on. As the leader of the legal team of 19 lawyers for Entel Perú, Quiñones explains his ‘tireless and methodological’ work to fulfil all government requirements to become a qualified applicant without assistance of external law firms. Very quick to act and respond to changes in the legal and compliance framework, in 2017 Quiñones was required to ‘implement a crime prevention model for the company’ in responses to new risks for the company. He has also had influence internally in his creation and modification of new procedures and policies, training employees, modifying contracts and internal regulations. Another internal initiative that has brought positive change to the company was a knowledge exchange program involving ‘rotation between teams that allow employees to learn different areas of law’. This means his lawyers develop news skills and offer a more comprehensive legal service to the business, making them ‘able to address their responsibilities from different points of view, enriching the answers they give to internal and external clients’.

During a varied career that has seen him practice in both law firms and in in-house legal roles, Gonzalo Raffo brings a wealth of experience to the in-house function of Pluspetrol Norte, where he is the most senior lawyer leading the legal function as general counsel in Peru. Attaining in-house legal experience in the financial sector, Raffo has previously held roles at Banco de Crédito del Perú, Santander Investment and the Inter-American Investment Corporation (based in Washington D.C.) before becoming a senior attorney with García Sayán Abogados and his appointment to his current role in late 2010. Summarising his career, Raffo speaks of a number of highlights: ‘In my initial years as an attorney in Banco de Crédito, we negotiated a syndicated loan to finance a local group in the construction of a hotel and office building. Through a creative structuring process, we managed to overcome the lack of clear regulation and mitigated the legal and tax risk derived from it. At Pluspetrol, I participated in the renegotiation of a complex natural gas supply agreement involving more than ten different companies in as many different jurisdictions, and was also involved in an arbitration in which we were able to convince the tribunal of our case and obtain a positive award’. Raffo also explains that he has ‘led the renovation process of the legal team’, which has involved building a team of young, bright lawyers focused on specialisation and growing their experience. He is proud that, as he puts it, ‘Pluspetrol´s current legal team in Peru, although relatively young, is one of the most recognised for its ability to manage complex oil and gas, commercial, environmental and regulatory matters’.

A vastly experienced legal expert in the mining sector, Julio Ramírez Bardález has been the UNACEM legal manager since 1989. During his career he has taken on numerous prestigious roles; he was the president of the Peruvian Institute of Mining, Oil, and Energy Law between 2006 and 2007, as well as member of the board of directors of Empresa Minera del Centro – Centromín Perú SA between 1993 and 1996. Bardález was also president of the Mining committee and Water Committee of the National Mining and Petroleum Society of Peru between 2006 and 2007. Actively involved in the Peruvian education system, Bardález is also a professor at the University of Piura in 1996 and completed the executive development programs and senior management of the University of Piura.

Founded in 1922 through the creation of its subsidiary Ferreyros, Ferreycorp is a leading Peruvian multinational corporation specialising in the field of capital goods and related services. In charge of the legal and compliance issues for the company, Eduardo Ramirez del Villar Lopez de Romana has been serving as Ferreycorp’s corporate affairs director since 2014. Del Villar is a highly regarded and well-respected in-house lawyer and having served in various legal capacities for Ferreycorp since his arrival in 1999, he has amassed a wealth of expertise and an almost unrivalled understanding of the company’s operations. As part of heading the legal function at this historic Peruvian organisation, del Villar has overseen a number high-value transactions and landmark agreements over the course of the past 19 years. Academically as well as professionally gifted, he obtained his Law degree from Pontificia Universidad Catoica del Peru and his Master’s degree in Law from George Washington University.

A landmark moment for the Peruvian banking sector occurred in 2013 when China’s largest commercial bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), gained a foothold in the market by opening its first subsidiary in the country. The staff of ICBC Perú Bank have been hand-picked to successfully establish the company in Peru, with legal manager Miguel Angel Raygada Castillo an example of this. A financial legal expert, Raygada has practiced at a number of prominent financial institutions and banks since the turn of the 21st century. From 2001, he practiced as an in-house lawyer with Interbank, Bank of the Nation, Banbif, and Banco de Crédito del Perú, and also enjoyed a spell as head of legal advice in a Peruvian university. Among other projects, ICBC Perú recently was co-arranger in the $500m deal to expand the Marcona Iron processing plant of Shougang, as part of a long term strategic commitment to expanding and diversifying the Peruvian economy.

Alfonso Rebaza is the legal manager for Volcan Cia Minera, one of the world’s largest producers of zinc, lead and silver. Considered one of the lowest cost producers in the industry due to the quality of its mineral deposits, all of Volcan’s operations are located in the Central Sierra in Peru and include the Yauli, Chungar, Alpamarca and Cerro de Pasco operating units. Rebaza oversees the legal processes for these four operating units which include a total of twelve mines, seven concentrator plants and one leaching plant. Helping with this expansion, Rebaza has been behind the exploration and development of its portfolio of greenfield and brownfield projects. Swiss mining and trading giant, Glencore is also planning to boost a stake in Volcan Cia Minera and is currently in talks to invest nearly $1bn in a Peruvian zinc operation, an exciting venture that Rebaza is currently facilitating.

As the legal manager for Compañía Minera Ares – an affiliate of Hochschild Mining, Jaime Rinaldi Mansilla has been behind some of its most notable transactions over the last few years. Amongst these is his collaboration on Hochschild Mining’s $360m plus deal to buy the Toronto-listed International Minerals Corporation in December 2013. More recently, in 2017 he led a $100m credit facility for Compañía Minera Ares and also led the preparation, negotiation, execution and settlement of a $142m EPC contract for the construction and other contracts related to development of the Inmaculada mine for more than $300m. This was a unique event and one of the greatest achievements in Rinaldi’s career as it was particularly complex procedure; he nevertheless led the team that obtained the construction permit for the development and building of the Inmaculada mine in a record time of seven months. Behind a number of internal innovations, he has implemented a tailored software for the management of contracts that allows the tracking of a contract or amendment from the request by a particular department of the company, through the drafting and negotiation. Before his current position he spent almost three years as legal manager of Minera Santa Cruz in Argentina, where he led all the legal matters on the development of the San José Mine. He heads a team of six lawyers and two non-legal specialists, with a variety of specialisations including corporate law, compliance, regulatory matters, labour, litigation, mining property and real estate.

Alfredo Daniel Rivero Nieto is a highly experienced Peruvian lawyer with 13 years of experience in successfully leading legal teams specialised in competition law and consumer protection. For nearly a decade Rivero has worked at Fallabella Perú, one of the most pre-eminent economic groups in the country, initially as head of the company’s customer services and subsequently as manager of the newly established self-regulation department. Over this period Rivero has managed more than 500 litigation cases submitted to the National Institute for the Defense of Free Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi), obtaining an impressive 98% favourable resolutions and establishing a significant number of key original precedents for the local market. Particularly impressive cases for Rivero include resolving 100% of claims that have arisen as a result of a mistake on Fallabella’s web page, winning a litigation filed against Hypermarcados Tottus (a hypermarket chain owned by Fallabella) and successfully shielding Hipermercados Tottus in a case related to price differences between several hypermarket chains in Peru. ‘[Rivero] is an excellent legal professional with strong academic preparation and precise legal criteria applicable to specific cases’, a nominating source shares. ‘He has demonstrated his work value by keeping Grupo Falabella retail companies with a very good reputation in the market and a minimum amount of fines. In the same way, he has been the creator of an in-house area that deals with 100% of cases of consumer protection and competition’. According to the source, while working on specific cases Rivero has demonstrated ‘great capacity for his duties as legal advisor and qualities of a leader in his field’.

Eduardo Romero is a distinguished lawyer in international business law, with over 17 years of solid experience providing legal advice to multinational companies. He has dealt with commercial, operational, financial, projects, labour, marketing, environmental and innovation areas, in national and international institutions, in the sectors of explosives, energy, banking, consulting and research. He encompasses a broad range of experience as an in-house lawyer of industrial and services companies, which have executed several projects including new production plants. Romero is considered an outstanding lawyer, experienced in leading and constructing the foundations of a legal department, including but not limited to the organisation of legal documentation, establishing new procedures and distributing legal news to the different areas of the company. Over the years he has become a legal manager in a complex regulatory environment, delivering efficiency and being promoted rapidly in the organisation due to his clear results. Romero was hired by Exsa in 2016 to head the regional legal department, where he performed a study of the functioning of the legal department, redesigning it to achieve the approval of additional head count and specialising the work of the team of lawyers by reformulating the profile of each of the lawyers of the team. Amongst his most notable transactions, Romero participated in the legal advice relating to the execution of financial transactions of a public company for more than $1bn with international banks. Romero sees his team’s success and ability to perform as a testament of his achievements as a regional leader.

A leading Peruvian company in the fishing sector, TASA (Tecnologica de Alimentos) was the first producer and exporter of fishmeal and fish oil in the world. Heading the company’s in-house legal operations is legal manager Hortencia Rozas, who joined in March 2013. Her role includes managing permits and official authorisations for the performance of the company and formulating service and supply contracts. She is well-aligned to and a prominent figure in the company having protected it by coordinating and managing legal defence in administrative and judicial processes as well as by providing advice for the application of legal frameworks in various areas of internal management. Prior to TASA, Rozas built a strong reputation in Peru’s telecommunications sector having worked as director of regulation at Telefónica Peru for seventeen years. Rozas obtained her Master’s in Business Law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru in 1978.

A banking regulatory specialist with over ten years of experience, César Augusto Saavedra Arias states that he is an ‘expert in interpretation, application and implementation of specialised regulations and their impact on the business’, and is proud of his ‘great versatility and the ability to find solutions and find business opportunities in the face of possible adversity’. Saavedra has been able to bring all these attributes to bear over the course of his career, which has been undertaken in the in-house legal teams of BBVA Banco Continental and Banco Financiero del Perú before taking on his current role as deputy legal manager of Banco Ripley. On the improvements he has made to the team since taking over in 2016, Saavedra points to the ‘greater interaction [that] has been generated with other business units in order to focus legal concepts on the products offered to the market’, as well as ‘new market conduct and compliance provisions that have been implemented’. He has also worked on a number of marquee transactions over the course of his career, and points out: ‘In 2015, at Banco Financiero del Perú, I provided advice and management on the transfer of the management of the Diners Club Perú credit card portfolio to the company. In 2016, at Banco Ripley Peru, I contributed advice and management on Issuance of Negotiable Deposit Certificates for up to S/200m and issuance of corporate bonds for up to S/50m. In 2017, I provided advice and management on issues of negotiable deposit certificates for up to S/225m and issuance of corporate bonds for up to S/144.4m’.

A highly decorated and well-regarded legal professional who has been recognised by the industry press as among the very best in his profession in Peru, Renzo Javier Salazar Vallejo built his fearsome reputation on the back of his tireless efforts in developing energy businesses and infrastructure projects across the Andean region. Since 2012, Renzo has worked in the energy area of the Rubio Leguia Normand law firm and then the in-house legal team of Grupo Cobra; he is now legal counsel for The National Interconnected System Economical Operation Committee (COES-SINAC) and board member of the Peruvian Committee of World Energy Council (WEC). Salazar has a number of personal highlights to look back on. ‘Between 2015 and 2017’, he explains, ‘I was designated as a Future Energy Leader by the international World Energy Council based in London (FEL-100) together with 99 other exceptional young professionals elected from all around the world’. It must be highlighted that according to the website of the FEL-100 this programme ‘is designed to help shape, inspire and grow the energy leaders of tomorrow’ who must be able to ‘solve the world’s most pressing challenges regarding energy and sustainability’. As well as this, Salazar has amassed an enviable succession of prestigious speaking engagements, interviews, and opinion articles, highlighting the esteem in which he is held by the wider legal and energy community. In that respect, during 2017 he has been called to collaborate with articles and opinions in the prestigious Peruvian newspaper named Gestion. Most recently, he spoke at the Peruvian Energy New and Renewable Energy Conference 2017 and the Multilatinas Forum 2017 in Peru and the Energyear Conference 2017 in Colombia. Moreover, during 2017 Salazar was interviewed by Miraflores TV (Peru), HCM Radio (Peru) and Telemedellin TV (Colombia), in which he talked about new opportunities to invest in the energy sector in Latin America. In terms of the projects that he is most proud of working on, he mentions that he ‘participated in the development and operation of renewable concessions of 32.5-MW Marcona Wind Power Plant and 97-MW, Tres Hermanas Wind Power Plant, as well as the 223-MW Eten Cold Reserve Power Plant (acting by and through its shareholder Cobra Group)’. These projects received international acclaim from the industry press sources. Currently, Salazar is absolving inquiries about new rules and the last changes in the Peruvian electrical market and, sometimes, in the Andean region.

The Italian multinational utilities company Enel conducts its business in Peru through a number of local subsidiaries: Enel Distribución Perú, Enel Generación Perú and Enel Generación Piura. Enel Distribución Peru is one of the largest electricity distributors in the country with its over 1.3m customers and 77816 TWh in sales, whereas Enel Generación Perú is a major regional generator with 13.86% of the total power market. In charge of legal and corporate affairs of both of these businesses is distinguished lawyer Luis Salem. A well recognised specialist in Peruvian regulatory law, Salem holds a degree from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú, where he completed extensive courses in privatisation and regulation of the energy sector, as well as a further specialisation in public services regulation. Prior to joining Enel in 1996, Salem worked at important law firms in the country and served as an advisor to both the Directorate General of Electricity and the Vice Ministry of Energy of the Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines.

Headquartered in Switzerland, ICARE Group offers project development, procurement and engineering services globally through its three group companies ICARE Energy, ICARE Procurement and ICARE Engineering. Despite being based in Peru, tri-lingual general counsel Myriam Samaniego works on the Group’s worldwide projects, including in Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Irak, and Botswana. ‘Since I started working for ICARE Group, the company has substantially expanded its activities worldwide. I believe my major strength for the company is that I have been able to adapt constantly to different working environments and legislations, providing advice under different laws’, she explains. Samaniego joined the Group in 2013 and her role includes advising on legal and contractual issues, negotiating and developing agreements, participating on trade negotiation as well as the implementation and monitoring of contingent liabilities and archiving. Prior to ICARE, she was supervisor of the technical cooperation department at Peru’s Office of Comptroller General. Before that, she was an associate at law firm Estudio Echecopar (part of Baker McKenzie) in Peru for two years.

Established in 2007, IC Power is a fast-growing global power generation company. Regional general counsel Gino Sangalli de los Rios joined in 2012 as deputy general counsel before taking his current position in 2016. He has worked on a number landmark activities for the company during his six-year spell there. Some of his career achievements include the negotiation of the sale of IC Power’s entire business in Latin America and the Caribbean to I Squared Capital Partners for an approximate consideration of $1.2bn, preparing IC Power for its IPO in the NYSE and negotiating a $600m project finance for the construction of the 525MW Cerro del Aguila hydroelectric power plant, the largest hydro plant built in Peru since the 1970’s. On the last deal, Sangalli says, ‘The credit facility, which involved the concourse of nine international banks and three multilateral agencies, was the largest ever granted for a power project in Peru. This transaction was extremely challenging not only because of the involvement of 12 financial institutions, but also due to the complex guarantee package that was tailored for this project, where land property rights and project location made it necessary to innovate over the typical project finance mould’. Sangalli is also recognised for achieving successful settlements of complex disputes that arose with a top-tier EPC contractor. Describing the changes he made to his legal team, Sangalli says, ‘We´ve divided our roles by jurisdictions, which has helped the legal team develop a close and pro-business relationship with local management. Similarly, the legal team has grown in quantity and seniority, allowing team members to become empowered by leading complex transactions’. Before joining IC Power, he was legal head of the Peruvian office of telecom company Global Crossing (now, CenturyLink) and, prior to that, senior legal counsel at the Enel Group power generator in Peru.

Minera Yanacocha is South America’s largest gold mine, located 800 kilometres northeast of Lima. It is operated via a joint venture between Newmont (51.35%), Minas Buenaventura (43.65%) and the International Finance Corporation (5%). Serving as regional legal and regulatory affairs director in Minera Yanacocha, Christian Schroder covers a vast portfolio in Peru’s mining and environmental laws. Amongst his most instrumental work, Schroder has been involved in talks for expanding Newmont’s Yanococha mine in Peru. Prior to his current role he served as a legal manager for airline LATAM Perú. He also served as legal manager for Enel Generación Perú, the largest private electric power generation company in Peru for five years and had a spell at Shell Peru for seven years. Schroder started his in-house career in 1993 at Southern Peru Copper Corporation, a major producer and refiner of copper, molybdenum, zinc, silver, lead and gold.

Engie is a major supplier of energy to Peru utilising its eight thermoelectric and hydroelectric power plants located throughout the country. Gilda Spallarossa is vice president – legal for the innovative and ambitious Peru branch of the company, and is an ideal fit for the role given previous experience as a partner with Lima-based Miranda & Amado. Here, Spallarossa cultivated an extremely positive reputation as an expert on gas and electricity and infrastructure projects, skills that prepared her well for her role at Engie which she took in 2016. Over the course of her employment, Spallarossa has been part of some impressive projects that carry on Engie’s track record of investment in Peru. Chief among these perhaps is the company’s construction of the 40 MW Intipampa solar power plant in Moquegua, a major project that looks set to revolutionise the country’s relationship with Solar Power when it becomes operational in the near future.

Described by nominators as someone who is ‘extremely detail orientated and does everything according to her beliefs and principles’, Tassara is known for always keeping in mind what is best for the company. She started her career in the legal department of BVVA Banco Continental in 2007, giving support to the bank’s Retail Banking division. After this she went to work for Mapfre Peru in 2009 before taking on a role at Nissan Maquinarias’s legal department in November 2009. There she was in charge of drafting and negotiations for all types of contracts, giving advice to company’s different areas and worked with the IT department to create a program to solve customer claims in real time. It was in 2011 that she started at global technology pioneer ABB in Peru. There, Tassara was in charge of all contracts and supporting all five commercial areas of the company. Tassara assumed her current role at Belmond Management, the operator of luxury hotels, train services and river cruises, on March 1st 2016. There she was initially hired to handle the contract area, but during that first year her role expanded to cover the compliance area in the legal department which includes all the reports to the headquarters and verifying compliance with all Belmond’s policies and directives. She also attended the internal and external audits and started giving advice on the company’s biggest and most important projects. During her time in this role she has reduced the closure time of contracts by 90% and organised the contracts, which allow the company to make business faster. As testament to being an extremely ‘results orientated’ individual and ‘extremely passionate’ about her work, Tassara was recently recognised as Belmond’s employee of the year for the corporate office in Peru.

Since joining the Peruvian state-owned development bank COFIDE (Corporación Financiera de Desarrollo) in July 2017 as legal and compliance manager, Hernan Vasquez Alzamora has already hit the ground running, implementing key organisational improvements. One example of this is his introduction of a well organised compliance department, which is now in charge of corporate governance issues and anti-money laundering. ‘This is an achievement for COFIDE, being a sovereign-owned development bank and a crucial institution for the Peruvian banking system’, Vasquez says. ‘I am now responsible for compliance matters to promote respect for rules and to ensure that the supervision requirements are being met’. Other key changes implemented by Vasquez include the preparation of several policies to address legal risks related to the financial activities, the creation of certain KPIs to evaluate his team’s performance and the appointment to specialised groups of attorneys to recover nonperforming loans. At present, Vasquez is also involved in the recovery of an aggregate amount of $500m handling complex negotiations and litigations. In his previous role as general counsel and chief compliance officer of Banco Santander between 2014 and 2017, Vasquez impressed with his participation on the acquisition of Leasing Perú (a Bancolombia subsidiary) assets for approximately $66m and his work on the restructuring of debts of Abengoa Perú before banks and financing lenders, for an aggregate amount of approximately $100m.

Claudia Velarde Arnáez’s financial legal expertise has seen her operate successfully in both private practice and in-house legal roles. Formerly an associate with Lima-based Rodrigo, Elias & Medrano, she took on a role overseas with Chadbourne & Parke in New York before moving in-house with Citi in 2012. After a year-long stint in the public sector in the Ministry of Education for Peru, displaying her versatility in the process, Velarde took on her current role as general counsel at asset management firm BD Capital in 2016. She has gone from strength to strength since, and speaks extremely highly of her experiences as an in-house counsel in the financial sector. ‘My experiences as an internal lawyer at Citi and BD Capital have helped shape my professional career to a large extent. The work done to analyse, evaluate and approve each new project or transaction has been especially enriching, as has been the launching of new products’.

Formerly a highly successful public sector lawyer within the Ministry of Energy and Mines of Peru from 2006 to 2012, Kristiam Martin Veliz Soto took on the position of chief legal officer for Consorcio Minero Horizonte. He was quickly in the thick of things, explaining how he was first tasked with oversight of the ‘expansions of the Parcoy, Los Zambos and Untuca Mining Units, as well as the company’s new mining projects, such as Santo Domingo, Romerillo, Palcawanka, Millo, Loma Linda, Pachaconas and Valetita’. Veliz Soto has since been at the forefront of Consorcio Minero Horizonte’s major projects. ‘In July 2017’, he explains, ‘we concluded the formalisation process with the legal entities of four peoples (Curaubamba Peasant Community, La Campesino Community Soledad, Artesanales Miners United of Huariracra Esperanza Parcoy and Sociedad Minera Retamas Parcoy) with whom we signed mining contracts in the area of the Mining Unit Parcoy’. This success has been due in no small part to Veliz Soto’s talent for management, which has allowed him to marshal the legal function of the company effectively. He goes into some of his techniques for this: ‘I believe that the important thing in management is to have a team that is committed to the company, which has passion for what it does and assumes each project or controversy as a family problem. My team has understood this and addresses each assignment in a comprehensive manner from beginning to end, some fruits of this work philosophy are evident in the success we have had with company projects’.

Transportadora de Gas del Perú (TGP) is responsible for the design, construction and operation of the pipeline transportation systems that will enable Peru’s pioneering and lucrative burgeoning Liquefied Natural Gas operations. Renzo Viani has been employed with the company for many years, having seen it grown massively since joining the team in 2002. Now an expert in all legal matters to do with natural gas transportation, he is especially adept at dealing with regulatory matters. He regularly contributes to the industry press, and is keen to provide the benefit of his expertise to aspiring contemporaries, He is also a member of the legal committee for hydrocarbons at the National Society of Mining, Petroleum and Energy.

Serving as legal director for Laureate Education’s Andean business, Alfredo Vidal Henderson provides full legal coverage to all institutions (universities and technical vocational colleges) owned and controlled by the network across Chile and Peru. In addition, Vidal handles all legal issues related to Laureate’s local M&A activity, and serves as compliance officer for the Andean region and each Peruvian institution. Praised highly by colleagues for his high professional integrity, Vidal is well trusted by senior management and engages proactively with the board to formulate key strategies. Prior to moving in-house, Vidal spent 12 years working as a partner at Miranda & Amado Abogados, where he successfully developed the tax and mining areas of the firm. His previous career also features legal roles at Placer Dome, Estudio Rosello, Echeandia & Manini Abogados, Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC), Vidal Abogados Asesores Tributarios (his personal practice) and Arthur Andersen & Co.

Peru-based Xenia Vizcarra Schaffler is the legal and government affairs manager for PepsiCo, who manages all legal aspects related to PepsiCo’s beverage and snack businesses in the country and dispenses strategic advice for decision making, avoiding risks and generating value for the company. Possessing an ability to provide commercially-focused counsel that spans various commercial, legal and regulatory matters, Vizcarra advises on commercial promotions and advertising that requiring sturdy knowledge of local licencing and IP laws. She contributes to the drafting and review of commercial contracts spanning a variety of different areas including purchases, transport, distribution, service provision, franchising, sponsorship, collaboration, letters of intent and confidentiality agreements, amongst others. Vizcarra is also responsible for government affairs, acting on PepsiCo’s behalf by representing the company in different guilds. A legal presence not only in her own department, Vizcarra is involved in spreading legal knowledge throughout all business departments, she preparation of procedures and training on different legal issues and compliance to colleagues outside the legal team. Vizcarra first joined PepsiCo in Peru in 2014, having spent almost a decade at energy giant Total – where she presided over a number of matters for the company’s gas and power division including various energy-related agreements.