About Renato
Renato Gelsi Alves is a recognized leader in legal, regulatory, and public policy affairs in Brazil and Latin America, with over 15 years of experience at the intersection of law, foreign trade, technical regulation, and industrial policy. He is currently Director of Industrial Policy for Major and Small Appliances at ELETROS, the leading industry association for the Brazilian electrical and electronics sector, where he drives advocacy strategies, regulatory governance, energy efficiency, sustainability, and industrial competitiveness initiatives with government and international bodies.
Previously, Renato held senior roles at AB Electrolux (Sweden), where he spearheaded high-stakes regulatory negotiations, managed trade defense and tariff regimes, designed compliance governance, and led cross-border legal and government affairs initiatives across Latin America.
Renato combines strategic legal expertise with business-oriented policy insight, and has delivered measurable results in:
- Legal strategy, corporate governance, and compliance
- Industrial and commercial contracts
- Foreign trade, tariffs, and trade defense
- Technical regulation (Inmetro, ABNT, MME)
- Public policy and government relations
- Crisis and reputation management
- Sustainability, ESG, and reverse logistics
He advises global companies, investors, and consultancies seeking to:
- Understand and mitigate regulatory and political risks in Brazil and LATAM
- Conduct legal and regulatory due diligence in industrial sectors
- Assess the impact of tariffs, trade barriers, and fiscal incentives
- Design market entry and expansion strategies
- Interpret and anticipate trends in energy, efficiency, and ESG
Renato is fluent in English, advanced in Spanish, and native in Portuguese. He holds a Law degree, an MBA in Management, an LL.M. in Business Law, and a Master’s in Public Policy (UFPR), plus executive studies in Economics for Public Policy at the University of Oxford.
English
Native or bilingual
Spanish
Fluent
Portuguese
Native or bilingual
Remote only
Primarily works remotely
Experience
- Eletros — National Association of Manufacturers of Electrical & ElectronicsDirector — Public PolicyPUBLIC SECTORJanuary 2021 - Today (5 years and 5 months)São Paulo, State of São Paulo, Brazil• Sector leadership with a legal-regulatory focus, steering the governance of association positions, antitrust compliance and engagement with government bodies. I coordinate councils and committees, structuring agendas, technical analyses and evidence-basedcontributions to public consultations, focused on economic impact. Accountable for message alignment and for managing sensitive/crisis issues, integrating the industry's technical/private dimension with the public/political dimension of government.• Association governance and collegiate leadership: chair 2 sector councils and 3 technical committees, involving ~25 companies and 30+ professionals; responsible for agenda setting, strategy, legal rigor of demands, coherence of positions and antitrust compliance in a diverse, complex environment.• Senior-leadership liaison: executive briefings for member company presidents/boards and approvals of strategies across public policy, foreign trade and regulatory quality, ensuring antitrust compliance.• Tax, Manaus Free Trade Zone & foreign trade (sector-wide): led tariff changes, ex-tariff regimes and trade defense on sensitive inputs for the sector; assessed competitive and fiscal impacts and translated them into positions, contracts, briefs and public-consultation submissions, observing competition law.• Regulatory governance: drafted/reviewed public statements, legal opinions, briefs and decks for hearings and proceedings at multiple government levels and private fora; set regulatory-compliance guidelines for refrigerators, ranges, washing machines, microwave ovens, water purifiers, vacuum cleaners and others, building association-level governance aligned with competition law.• Risk analyses for executive decision-making: modeled scenarios for regulatory, tariff and political impacts, with monitoring routines and reports to the board and committees supporting critical deliberations.
- Electrolux do Brasil S/ASenior Legal Counsel & Government AffairsLEGALMay 2016 - February 2021 (4 years and 9 months)Curitiba, State of Paraná, Brazil• Senior in-house counsel integrated with Government Relations, responsible for legal strategy, risk governance and legal compliance on sensitive topics, protecting the company's reputation and enabling business results. Advisory and contractual support for industrial and corporate operations; standardization of critical clauses and legal documents; management of outside counsel and coordination with technical areas.• Contracts and corporate advisory (cross-functional): drafted/reviewed contracts and advised on manufacturing, transportation, warehousing/material handling, environment, real estate, finance, procurement (direct/indirect and finished goods), logistics, after-sales and accessories.• Litigation management & credit recovery: led enforcement of a chattel mortgage in credit operations in Honduras and Panama, supporting the Miami (USA) office in managing these credit exposures.• Industrial/real estate operations — Manaus Free Trade Zone: supported acquisition of land with incentives and regularization of the Manaus plant, enabling factory expansion.• Legal strategy, governance & compliance (senior leadership): helped structure the institutional relations agenda by implementing a regulatory committee and reporting flow of regulatory updates to business units (greater decisional predictability).• Environmental (AM & SP): supported environmental liabilities management with legal oversight, governance and executive reporting; result: compliance with remediation targets and reduced contingencies.• Tax incentives — Paraná: supported negotiation of incentive packages for industrial expansion, aligning investment and employment counter-parts with authorities; result: legal support to new productive investments.• Tariff changes & trade defense: worked on ex-tariffs and defense measures (tariff changes, reviews, antidumping), generating savings and preventing costs in sensitive inputs (steel, plastics resins) and in the import of finished goods.
- Poletto & Possamai Law FirmAssociate AttorneyLEGALOctober 2014 - January 2016 (1 year and 3 months)Curitiba, State of Paraná, BrazilSeconded to Electrolux do Brasil, as described above. Seconded to Electrolux do Brasil, as described above.
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Education
- Public and Private International NegotiationsUNESPPublic and Private International Negotiations
- LL.B.Centro Universitário Eurípides de MaríliaLL.B.