The Latin American GC

As this report will show, general counsel in Latin America have much in common with their counterparts elsewhere. Many of the findings of our survey mirror very closely what we’ve heard from GCs in Europe and elsewhere. That’s not surprising in a business world that continues to embrace globalisation. Nevertheless, there are important differences.

One may be that GCs in Latin America have a different range of opportunities. The McKinsey Global Institute, for example, has identified the issue of a “missing middle” in the region – a relative lack of vibrant and diverse midsize companies. According to McKinsey’s analysis, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico have only about half as many companies with revenue over USD 50m as its benchmark emerging economies (relative to GDP). The region’s biggest players, while in many cases very successful, are mostly concentrated in a few sectors and are, relatively, less numerous than their peers elsewhere. And the ‘long tail’ of smaller companies is, on the whole, not an environment that naturally promotes the growth of multi-faceted in-house legal departments.

Many GCs, of course, therefore find roles in multinational companies that are headquartered elsewhere. Indeed, the majority of GCs in our survey (59%) work in companies that are headquartered outside Latin America.

Another obvious point is that a GC based in one of the region’s legal hubs may be providing coverage for a number of other, quite different regional jurisdictions, some with legal systems which may require different approaches to business and risk. Nearly 40% of the GCs in our survey have direct reports in other countries. Identifying and understanding local nuances that
can impact the attitudes and behaviours of clients, stakeholders, authorities and regulators in the region is key for GCs with that sort of regional reach.

Particularly for GCs in multinational companies, keen to cultivate a worldwide way of doing things, achieving an acceptable degree of cultural uniformity across such a diverse region can be challenging, as can the simple fact of physical remoteness from other operations. Indeed, some GCs apparently prefer to retain a variety of law firms in different jurisdictions, rather than
building up a spread of expertise in-house. Growing the in-house legal department can bring other problems too. GCs whose teams are expanding have to get on top of a range of HR and talent management concerns that may not have mattered much to them before. They often lack the experience or training to feel comfortable with this.