Scholarship / Building an anticorruption environment - Chevening Network Essay [5]

Hi guys, I would love some insight on this essay, I am hoping to apply to chevening!

building relationships

Chevening is looking for individuals with strong professional relationship building skills, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Please explain how you build and maintain relationships in a professional capacity, using clear examples of how you currently do this, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future.

Growing up, I faced the challenge to live in very different places. I was born in the countryside, in the outskirts of the city of Mendoza. A few years later, my family moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where we lived many years. Currently, I live in the city of Buenos Aires, the country's capital, where I attended law school and now practice as a lawyer, specializing in ethics and compliance, a field I am very passionate about. These experiences have taught me the challenges of immigration, but specially how to adapt and strive in changing social and cultural environments.

As a lawyer, I believe that a critical element to provide meaningful legal advice is building relationships. For me, the legal profession is all about solving problems, and to solve problems you have to understand them. Interacting with and understanding clients, peers, and policy makers is fundamental.

I have always tried to maintain this approach in the different work experiences I have had so far. This includes legal internships in widely known companies, such as Siemens and SAP, where I was fortunate to work side by side with incredible people. Later on, I was able to secure an associate position in top tier law firms such as Allende & Brea and finally Beccar Varela, the firm I currently work with. Beccar Varela is a pace setting firm in our legal market, and has provided me a resourceful platform for networking.

Each work experience allowed me to reach the next, and along the way l began creating a diverse and fruitful network. This is especially true in the field of compliance, a practice where I found I could make a difference.

In this sense, my work as an associate and my own skill set has provided me with the opportunity to network in different forums. Due to my extensive background with Brazilian culture and my work in compliance, I was asked to join and remain an active member of the Brazilian-Argentine Chamber of Commerce youth committee on the firm behalf. In this forum, where the majority of Brazilian companies with presence in our country are represented, I exchange experiences in the field of compliance with other members.

I am also a member of the Argentine Ethics and Compliance Association and participate in the anti-money laundering committee of the City of Buenos Aires Bar Association, where analyze, discuss and propose regulatory legislation to our local Financial Information Unit.

Furthermore, I co-author articles related to compliance and anticorruption, through a well-established network of collaboration between my firm and legal publications both in Argentina and abroad.

As a Chevening awardee my intention would be to build on the network platform I currently have available and seek to collaborate with other alumni to develop the country's anticorruption environment, which has to be a private and public endeavor to be successful.