Interview with Carlos Hernán Paz Mosquera

I am currently Head of Legal and Compliance at Riopaila Castilla, a sugar and energy producer based in Colombia’s Valle de Cauca. The company, with roots stretching over 100 years in Colombia, exports to over 20 countries worldwide whilst meeting the demand of its important domestic market. I joined from outsourcing company Ficasia and previously worked at Deloitte.

My job was to transform the image and perception of the legal function within the business, previously seen as a block or obstacle. In-house legal teams must realise that they work for their internal clients, and these clients must be satisfied.

When I arrived at Riopaila in 2018, I was tasked with refocusing the strategy of the in-house legal team, ensuring that it aligned with the overall corporate strategy of the company. Within a year, I had devised a strategy focusing on four key pillars: (1) focus on the internal client; (2) compliance and ethics to permeate all activities; (3) add value to the business; and (4) create efficiencies. Reporting directly to the CEO, I maintain constant focus on the company’s corporate strategy and adapt the strategy of my team as necessary. Our challenge is to put ourselves in the shoes of the business and anticipate what it will need.

The pillars alone are not enough to achieve my team’s ultimate aim of adding value to the business. Each pillar must have its own strategy to ensure we meet our goals. We regularly communicate our activities and initiatives internally, divide the legal team into areas (similar to private practice) so that our lawyers can be generalists with subject matter expertise, and constantly look for new technologies to make processes slicker.

Without a culture of ethics, you have nothing.

Equally as important is promoting a culture of compliance and ethics. We take a proactive approach to risk, running workshops for our other business managers and regularly reviewing internal policies to entrench this culture.

The team needs to have a positive mindset to meet our goals and add value to the company. I place great importance on work/life balance. I want my team to have families, relationships, interests and hobbies. A person working regularly until 11pm is not going to produce their best work; I don’t want my lawyers to burn out. I give my lawyers freedom to express themselves, to be on cross-departmental committees and to be involved in relevant projects that interest them.

The knowledge and experience I have should not be used for me to shine, but to serve my team and enable them to produce results.

I firmly believe in measuring the value that we contribute to the business. I have developed my own leadership style to develop skills not traditionally associated with lawyers. Over time, it has become clear that, as a leader, my role is to use my experience to guide individuals in my team, and facilitate business growth, whilst the real results are delivered by the members of my team. You can only have a high-achieving team if you have leadership, but empowering the team is as important as leading.

To be a good leader, I seek to prioritise providing others with my knowledge and experience, as opposed to putting my ego first.

We are clear and transparent with our people in relation to their development. We adopt measurable outcomes as, without metrics such as billable hours, measuring the success of an in-house legal team can be challenging. At Riopaila, we operate a traffic light system, measuring KPIs against performance on specific projects. Our senior lawyers focus on the overarching four pillars, to embed the company’s corporate strategy, including ethics and compliance, in everything that we do. If individuals are not achieving ‘green’ on the traffic light system, we encourage open dialogue to improve their reviews.

Legal functions which do not explore or maximise the use of new technologies will disappear. 

The role of the GC is evolving, but other management positions in an organisation require different skillsets. Lawyers are obligated to make the legal function more innovative for the rest of the business. For lawyers looking to become CEOs or COOs, it is essential to assess the areas in which you can add the most value, whether that be, for example, strategy, communications or finance. Such ambitions also depend heavily on where the legal department sits within the business, as well as overall strategy.

Our in-house legal team also benefits from evolving technology. There are many opportunities for in-house legal teams to benefit from new technologies. For instance, we operate a platform whereby various areas of the business can access basic template contracts, inputting the data according to their needs and the specific characteristics of the transaction at hand. Artificial intelligence can also give teams tools with which to become even more efficient.