Felipe Pinedo – RGIS

For Felipe Pinedo, senior legal counsel for Latin America at RGIS, every day is a lesson in adaptability. He oversees legal matters across multiple jurisdictions, each with its own unique regulatory frameworks, cultural norms, and business landscapes. What might be considered standard practice in Mexico could look completely different in Brazil, Colombia, or Chile. Pinedo’s first principle in navigating these differences is mindset.

Felipe Pinedo | RGIS | Senior Legal Counsel, LATAM

“Above all, it’s important to have a good attitude, staying calm, to possess mental flexibility and the ability to adapt to the challenges imposed by each jurisdiction I oversee,” he explains. “It is also important to have an open vision and make an effort to thoroughly understand your organization and how it operates in each country with its specific and local characteristics, to define the needs of each one, the goals, and the ways to achieve them.”

That commitment to context is not just legal philosophy—it’s an operational necessity. For a multinational like RGIS, which provides inventory services and retail solutions in more than 40 countries, alignment between corporate expectations and local realities is essential. Pinedo’s ability to bridge those worlds, while guiding the company through shifting legal and regulatory environments, is what makes his role both demanding and rewarding.

Balancing compliance with business growth

At its core, Pinedo sees his work as a mechanism for enabling business continuity. Legal counsel in a growth-oriented environment cannot simply be reactive. Instead, it requires anticipating risks, developing frameworks that allow flexibility, and ensuring compliance without hampering opportunity.

“My role in the company is to enable business continuity,” he says. “I strive to have a strategic approach that allows me to define long-term goals and objectives, as well as the actions necessary to achieve them, always aligned with our mission and values.”

RGIS Mexico—and the broader Latin American region—has experienced economic and regulatory turbulence in recent years. Sluggish growth, security concerns in specific markets, and global volatility have all impacted business. But Pinedo sees as much opportunity as risk. New technologies, he notes, are enabling RGIS to operate more efficiently, cut costs, and maintain high-quality service delivery even in lean times.

“Global volatility coupled with the slow economic growth of the countries of the region is a high risk,” he admits. “However, we can highlight that new technologies have come to provide us with enormous opportunities that have allowed us to adapt to the new situations of the industry and continue operating under a savings scheme without sacrificing quality.”

His role has evolved to become less about barriers and more about pathways. Rather than saying something “can’t be done,” he now approaches situations by asking what can be achieved, under what conditions, and with what risk appetite. That shift—from gatekeeper to enabler—is emblematic of his legal philosophy.

Working in global alignment

To execute effectively, Pinedo must constantly balance local realities with RGIS’s global mission. He collaborates closely with the company’s global leadership, ensuring Latin America’s needs are represented and integrated into broader strategies.

“We maintain a great, open and fluid communication with our global leadership,” he says. “This allows us to establish and, where appropriate, prioritize the company’s regional needs promptly, always aligned with our global mission.”

That collaboration is not one-directional. While he ensures compliance with global policies and legal frameworks, Pinedo also brings regional insights to the table. His role requires considering cultural, legal, and territorial differences—factors that may not always be apparent from a distance. The fact that RGIS leaders are receptive to those insights, he says, is a key reason the company has been able to thrive across Latin America.

RGIS itself is a global leader in inventory services and supply chain solutions. Founded in 1958 and headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, the company has grown into an international presence with tens of thousands of employees. Its services go far beyond simple inventory counting; RGIS helps retailers, manufacturers, and healthcare providers manage data, optimize processes, and reduce inefficiencies. The company’s success depends not only on operational execution but also on legal precision—particularly in complex regions like Latin America.

Within that framework, Pinedo must weigh competing demands. He acknowledges that the hardest part of his job is making tough calls under pressure.

“This is a professional career where difficult decisions are a daily occurrence,” he says. “It is imperative to make decisions without sacrificing our values, ethics, and regulatory compliance.”

The flip side, however, is the satisfaction of steering through those challenges.

“The best thing is the satisfaction of a job well done by doing the right thing.”

Embracing technology, building culture

If there is one trend that excites Pinedo about the future of his profession, it is technology—particularly artificial intelligence. For him, AI is not optional; it is essential.

“Any lawyer that does not embrace new technologies is falling behind,” he says. “AI is a very valuable tool that allows you to save time, economize human and economic resources and carry out effective searches regarding legal instruments. It has already become an indispensable and non-optional element.”

By streamlining routine tasks and accelerating research, AI frees him to focus on the strategic elements of his role. In his view, nothing is worse than legal work becoming rote, and technology is a critical partner in avoiding that trap.

But while technology provides efficiency, Pinedo’s personal philosophy emphasizes something deeper: culture. One of his biggest career challenges has been the lack of organizational understanding around compliance. Too often, he says, companies either resist compliance entirely or drown themselves in bureaucratic red tape. In both extremes, the result is inefficiency. His task has been to embed compliance into corporate DNA without allowing it to paralyze operations.

That balancing act has roots in his personal journey. Growing up in a country marked by violence and a lack of authority, Pinedo became fascinated by law as a mechanism for justice and structure. Over time, his career path shifted toward in-house counsel—a role he now embraces fully as an opportunity to drive real-world outcomes.

All that motivates

Family has been a steady influence on his career. Raised in a household that valued education, hard work, and integrity, he learned early the importance of persistence and effort. Today, those values guide his professional decisions while also grounding his personal life. He credits his wife and family with providing constant support, and he prioritizes spending quality time with them despite his demanding schedule.

Outside of work, he is passionate about art and theater. He has participated in multiple productions open to the public and finds theater to be transformative.

“Art in general and theater in particular transmits emotion, feeling and gives a positive message,” he says.

It also strengthens qualities he uses every day as a lawyer: empathy, teamwork, and reflective critique. Sports, too, play a role in his worldview, offering lessons in discipline, effort, and collective strength.

Pinedo’s role as senior legal counsel for Latin America at RGIS is as multifaceted as the region itself. He is a strategist, a risk manager, a collaborator, and above all, an enabler of business continuity. His ability to navigate complex jurisdictions, align regional priorities with global strategies, and embrace new technologies positions him as a vital leader in RGIS’s continued growth.

For Pinedo, the heart of the job is simple: do the right thing, in the right way, even under pressure. As late President John F. Kennedy once said, “A man does what he must – despite personal consequences, despite obstacles, dangers and pressures, this is the basis of all human morality”.

It is a philosophy born of personal conviction and professional necessity, one that continues to guide him as he helps RGIS chart its course across one of the world’s most dynamic and challenging regions.