“Compliance is not about rules – it’s about people.”

An interview with Thiago Veloso Costa, Legal Director – Precision Tubing South America at Norsk Hydro in Brazil. 

What are the biggest external forces or trends currently shaping your role as General Counsel and how are you responding to them? 

Today, the GC role is deeply influenced by: 
• Social and regulatory pressures for safe, inclusive workplaces. 
• Growing expectations for corporate transparency and accountability, especially regarding harassment, discrimination, and diversity. 
• Technological advancements that enable more effective monitoring of conduct and organisational culture. 
 
My response strategy includes: 
• Strengthening people compliance policies with a focus on prevention and support. 
• Promoting a culture of accountability and active listening, with safe and reliable reporting channels. 
• Integrating Legal with HR, ESG, and Communications to ensure compliance is not just communicated – but lived. 

How are you balancing the increasing demands of legal risk management with the expectation to drive business value and strategic insight? 

This balance requires: 
• Positioning Legal as a culture partner, not just a control function. 
• Prioritising human and reputational risks alongside financial and operational ones. 
• Translating compliance into competitive advantage, showing how safe and diverse environments attract talent, strengthen brand equity, and reduce liabilities. 
 
In practice, this means: 
• Creating metrics that connect culture to performance. 
• Actively participating in strategic forums, bringing legal perspectives to decisions with human impact. 
 
What’s one lesson or insight from your in-house journey that you wish you’d known earlier and would share with a fellow GC today? 

“Compliance is not about rules – it’s about people.” 
 
Understanding this early transforms the GC’s role. Legal moves from being the guardian of “no” to the architect of “how.” Institutional empathy, active listening, and a commitment to equity are just as strategic as any contractual clause.