The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter - Issue 11

Mar 1

Dear Colleagues:

Sometimes work experiences, reviewed in hindsight and years afterward, are a near impossible jigsaw puzzle of disconnected pieces – complex issues, big personalities, meaningful breakthroughs, missed opportunities, collective accomplishments, and more. And every now and then you see a clear throughline that allows you to look back and easily arrange the pieces to see the full picture.

Twenty years ago, I walked into the Yahoo! Brazil offices with our local CEO to interview a candidate for the general counsel position. Like the business team members before me, I left deeply impressed with our leading candidate. She was so smart and so knowledgeable on law and policy, even at such an early stage in her legal career. We had a long discussion about the role, the business, and about values. In addition to her legal and public policy acumen, she had an inclusive vision for how to support and, at times guide, the business. She said to the head of the local office that she would be a counselor, advisor, and creative thinker and that she would expect a healthy tension between the legal and business teams at times.

Regina Lima, our guest practitioner in this newsletter, has practiced and lived the same values and vision we discussed two decades ago in an interview in São Paulo. As general counsel for the Yahoo! business in Brazil and then for the region for nearly a decade, Regina embodied the international legal team’s core values, arranged just so and known collectively and affectionately as PIGLET – perspective, integrity, guiding ethical decision-making, leadership, excellence, and teamwork. I recall that when she was awarded the international legal team’s inaugural superstar award, it was a surprise to no one on the hundred person team…except her.

Regina worked on, and excelled at, every issue under the sun: privacy, product compliance, commercial, M&A, employment, policy, law enforcement, IP, litigation, regulatory affairs, and more. She confronted police who entered our offices threatening to seize laptops to obtain user data. She led briefings in Brasilia for senior legislators on complex legal reform topics. She guided the legal and business teams in multiple acquisitions. She managed a large litigation portfolio from day one. I don’t recall for certain, but I’m guessing she even negotiated a better office lease price. The spouse of a company executive was kidnapped (and released safely a week later), and in the years afterward Regina was the single point of contact for all safety and security issues. She truly did it all, in multiple languages, across business cultures and geographic borders.

At Twitter, where Regina spent most of another decade, she ultimately led both the international legal team as well as the commercial legal team – a group of 40+ legal professionals. While the legal and policy challenges have grown in scale and complexity since the earliest days of the Internet, Regina’s commitment to her values and vision remains intact after all these years.

Regina also refers in the Q&A to being very aware of the spaces in which she moves and learning to deconstruct bias, a constant in her career as a Black woman and a Brazilian. Her authenticity and leadership through the most challenging times over her career, including a tumultuous past year, have been as important as ever and as steady as ever.

If you work in this sector, you’ll come across Regina’s former team members and colleagues from Yahoo!, Facebook, and Twitter; ask them about her, and you’ll see what I mean. She mentored colleagues on her team and beyond and was always their best advocate – to this day. Every regional business leader she worked with would also say she was their most trusted advisor. Not just legal advisor but advisor, full stop. The CEO of any tech company with global reach would be fortunate to have her as a counselor and general counsel.

The throughline is so clear when looking back over the years at Regina’s principled and practical approach to problem-solving and advocacy for responsible decision-making. The throughline has always been her character and wisdom. Whether you’re a student in law, public policy, business, or engineering, a tech policy professional, an in-house lawyer, or a technology company executive, you’ll absorb so much from Regina’s leadership examples. Take a read of her answers to get just a glimpse.

Michael Samway
The Business and Human Rights Group
Website: www.thebhrgroup.com

Guest Spotlight: Regina Lima

Regina Lima is the former Commercial and International Deputy General Counsel for Twitter. She joined Twitter in 2014 as Legal Director for Latin America. In 2019, Regina was appointed Interim Senior Legal Director for Asia Pacific and Latin America. She was promoted to Deputy General Counsel in 2020 when she started to oversee the entire international legal team for Twitter. In 2021, she started on a global role overseeing both the international and global commercial legal teams at Twitter. Prior to joining Twitter, Regina spent 2 years at Facebook as Latin American Associate General Counsel and 8 years at Yahoo! overseeing their South America legal team.

What are some of the most formative periods or events in your life that shaped your work in technology, law, public policy, free expression, privacy, business?

I am grateful to have had the chance to work at 3 extremely influential US companies (Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter) that have shaped the technology space over the last 20 years. My roles have been very rewarding in their own unique way. I joined these businesses in the very early stage of their international expansion and had the chance to build teams from the ground up. This pushed me to wear different hats, be scrappy and develop an ability to quickly and constantly assess priorities. I strongly believe that fundamentally, these experiences have allowed me to be a master of the global/local dynamic, understanding when it was important to advocate for change in global initiatives as well as to identify when region specific strategies could be used as global frameworks. My career has provided me the unparalleled opportunity where most of my tenure was based outside the headquarters of the companies I worked for. There is something very humbling in having to show up to so many conversations knowing that you will need to deconstruct bias and help peers and decision makers understand how a model US-to-the-world does not quite fit. As an international leader, you also have to understand this is a dialogue and that you will need to walk people through the journey of truly thinking globally and embracing the challenges that come with that as a propeller for success. Likewise, my most recent global role at Twitter helped me better appreciate the challenges faced by HQ. While I believe being in the region has always been my superpower, I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to sit on both sides of the table and provide contextual nuances yet bearing a global perspective.

Who are some people or an individual you’ve met during your work in this field who have had a profound influence on your work? And in what way?

I interviewed for a job at Yahoo! at the end of 2003 when I was just 3 years out of law school. I had worked a couple of years at a VC where I was responsible for providing generalist legal support for the entire portfolio of technology companies they invested in. Later on I made the move in-house to one of these companies and realized this was the right direction for my career. The Yahoo! role was literally a dream job except they wanted someone with +10 years of experience. I am forever thankful for Michael Samway taking a chance on me when I was so young and was tasked with navigating the struggles of a pretty complex operation. That Yahoo! role was the foundation for everything that came next in my professional life as a legal leader in tech and Michael's vision and approach to leadership is still the strongest I have seen in my trajectory.
As we close Carnival's festivities this week, I also want to name the 3 Brazilian executives that I have learnt the most from during my career. As a business lawyer, nothing teaches you more than clients that aspire to be transformational to the business and people they lead. Fiamma Zarife, Guilherme Ribenboim and Andre Izay have challenged me to be more creative and to better measure risks versus opportunities. The partnership I developed with these executives while holding different roles in different companies truly embodies what I believe is a successful and accountable relationship between the business and an in-house legal team.

What are some of the values that guide you in the legal and business fields or in life more broadly?

Authenticity and empathy. Nothing is more powerful than being yourself. I grew up upper middle class in a country that hosts the biggest black population outside of Africa but where systemic racism is the norm. I was often scrutinized (still happens) within many of the spaces I circulated so being authentic was the only self-acceptance path I saw. I realized early on that I had to take responsibility for being comfortable at my own risk because chances were that my self-worth would be questioned by others along the way. Likewise, trying to put myself in the shoes of other people was something that always came to me very naturally. To be clear, there are many moments in life where this is easier said than done particularly if you belong to a historically oppressed group. It is, however, worth the daily exercise for me. Leaders that can be both authentic and empathic earn trust and nothing is more important to me as an individual than being trustworthy.

What’s a specific event when you feel like your team’s or organization’s work was able to make a significant impact in the field of the rights of users?

I am passionate about the work that comes with expanding into new markets and assessing the best operational framework for dealing with local regulators, law enforcement agencies, government officials and business stakeholders. I have had the chance to lead many of those reviews and would say, without a doubt, that properly assessing the potential impact to users rights on these pre market entries is critical. Companies have to be very thoughtful while doing these reviews. Planning in advance is key so that crossing red lines that result in eroding the protection of user rights does not become the rule in order to maintain the ability to operate in a certain country or region. The regulatory landscape is constantly changing so it is equally important that mechanisms for continued review of markets are in place as well.

What are some ways you think the technology, policy, and legal fields can become more diverse, inclusive, and equitable in composition, policy/legal topics, and advocacy?

This is a very hard question. The 2022 tech layoffs showed the tough reality that a lot on this front was cosmetic as so many DEI initiatives were hit so hard. I want to be hopeful about the future but have given myself some space to digest how I believe this work can be done in the future.

For undergraduate or graduate students reading this, what type of course or activities (e.g., internships, summer jobs) do you think might be most helpful as they contemplate careers in technology, public policy, law, and human rights?

I know this comes from a place of a lot of privilege but nothing has contributed more to my career than traveling. I was 13 years old when my parents nervously kissed me goodbye at Rio's international airport when I left for my first experiment living abroad (destination at that time was Bath, UK). Learning and living other cultures was always a priority in my life and it is something I continue to try to impress on my daughter. I personally believe that the biggest challenge that continues to exist in the intersection of technology, public policy, law and human rights is the ability to navigate the diversity of realities across the globe. I do not think you can lead in this space in a thoughtful way unless you are able to truly embrace the fact that the current international frameworks for defining what is desirable or not in terms of public policy and regulation are far from perfect and they continue to be mostly Western influenced. My personal trajectory was always driven by seeking the sometimes uncomfortable but equally humbling experience of trying to see things through the lenses of other cultures and I have no question this will continue to be key for those contemplating a career in these fields.

How do you continue doing what you do, pushing and advocating responsible decision-making inside companies?

I still have a couple of months to go before I go back to Brazil with my family. This forced sabbatical is making me think a lot about how I want to show up for my next role. I am sure there are ways in which I will approach this differently in the future. However, at this point, I feel that the best I can do to continue to push and advocate for responsible decision-making is by choosing to work for companies that hold leaders accountable. We are obviously in a very challenging job market and there might have been moments in my life in which, for a variety of reasons, I could not be as deliberate as I wished about this philosophy. This said, the bottom line is that, ideally, you push and advocate for responsible decision-making by being very intentional about the companies you join so you help companies that will echo that model succeed.

What’s an event or period professionally from which you’ve learned a great deal?

My last year at Twitter was the most challenging of my career. This was both pre and post acquisition and moving my family to the United States added significant complexity to this period. There are many important learnings from this time but one that I would call out is that there is a huge difference between thoughtful and careful advance planning for different scenarios and how you will actually feel when things happen. Being ready and even expecting a certain outcome, does not mean it will be less difficult when it happens. Resilience is not built in planning for change or adversity, you have to live through things to actually exercise that muscle.

What are some of the non-mainstream sources you turn to when building knowledge or keeping informed on tech, policy, law, and human rights related issues?

The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter

The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter - Issue 11

Guest Spotlight: Regina Lima

Positions in Policy, Law, and Digital Rights

Civil Society/Non-Profits

Press/Media

Boards

Academia

International Organizations

Think Tanks/Research Institutions

Multi-Stakeholder Organizations/Initiatives

Government

Industry

Industry Associations

Firms/Consultancies