Esade Alumni Aptísimi award winners: Victoria Ortega (Consejo General de la Abogacía Española), Telefónica España, International Bar Association and Mireia Sabaté (Baker McKenzie)

Acknowledgement

The winner of the Outstanding Career Award is Victoria Ortega, president of the Consejo General de la Abogacía Española. The panel appreciated her long career specialised in business law, particularly in the realms of procedural and administrative law. The panel mentioned not only mentioned her successful career as a lawyer but also highlighted her outstanding academic background and her remarkable professional achievements as a female pioneer in the upper echelons of the entities that represent and coordinate the legal profession.

The winner of this year’s Esade Alumni Aptissimi Award for the best corporate counsel was Telefónica España. The panel of judges was particularly impressed by the dynamism of their “sophisticated, highly digital counsel, with its clear commitment as a strategic partner of the company to providing guidance in close proximity to its business”, and also highlighted the comprehensive, transversal training of their lawyers, combined with their in-depth specialisation in the realm of the company’s core business, and the ability to adapt to new developments and legal requirements. The other factors considered included, “internal leadership in legal defence, guidance and settlement of legal challenges, and the commitment to training and diversity amongst lawyers”.

The winner of the award for contribution to the legal profession and society is the International Bar Association (IBA), the foremost organisation of the international legal profession, whose members include more than 80,000 lawyers from the world’s leading firms and some 190 associations of lawyers in more than 170 countries. Of the IBA’s many merits, the panel was particularly impressed by “the outstanding contribution the IBA has made since its inception more than 70 years ago to the global development of the profession and its values, particularly its fostering of human rights, the rule of law and the administration of justice”. The IBA is a global benchmark for the legal profession and makes a considerable contribution to shaping the many facets of the future of this profession, including business law.

The winner of the Insignis Alumni award is Mireia Sabaté (Lic&MD 01), labour law partner at Baker McKenzie. This award goes to former students of different programmes at the Esade Law School who have forged outstanding careers in legal, academic, cultural, business and social spheres. The panel of judges highlighted her successful career, awards, great prestige in the legal profession and her well-established academic activity.

Esade Alumni ‘Aptissimi’ awards

Previous winners of Aptissimi awards include the prestigious lawyers Miquel Roca Junyent, Rodrigo Uría, Fernando Pombo, José Pedro Pérez-Llorca and Gaspar Ariño; the international academics Christian Armbrüster, Barry Carter and David O. Wilkins; the leading corporate counsels at Aena, Abertis, Inditex, Ferrovial and CaixaBank; and such foremost entities as the CNMV, Abogacía General del Estado, International Chamber of Commerce and the Court of Justice of the European Union, to name but a few.

The sponsors of the 13th awards this year are: AGM Abogados, Allen & Overy, Andersen Tax & Legal, Anzizu, López & Castellanos, Baker & McKenzie Abogados, BDO Abogados, Clifford Chance Abogados, CMS Albiñana Suárez de Lezo, Crowe Horwath, Cuatrecasas, Deloitte Legal, Dentons, DWF- Rousaud Costas Duran Abogados, EY, Fieldfisher Jausàs, Font Abogados y Economistas, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Garrigues, Abogados y Asesores Tributarios, Gómez-Acebo & Pombo Abogados, Grant Thornton, Iterlegis, KPMG, Osborne Clarke, Pedrosa Lagos, Pérez-Llorca, Roca Junyent, Santiago Mediano, Uría Menéndez and Vialegis.