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HOUSTON (July 8, 2022) – Womble Bond Dickinson announced today that Francisco Balduzzi has joined the firm’s Corporate and Securities group as a partner in the Houston office. He has more than 25 years of international experience as a senior legal executive and in private practice, particularly in Latin America. He has a strong cross-border M&A, transactional, and dispute practice within the energy and natural resources (ENR) and mining sectors.
Balduzzi has extensive experience serving as in-house counsel for multi-national companies operating in the ENR sector. Most recently, he was Head of Legal LATAM and Asia Pacific for one of the world’s largest gold mining companies, where he was a member of the LATAM and Asia Pacific Executive Team and led legal services in those regions. Prior to that, he spent more than a decade at a global consulting and engineering company, ultimately serving in several key regional and global positions, including Group Assistant General Counsel. In that role, he reported to the Group General Counsel and was responsible for the management and provision of the Group global legal support. He was previously responsible for transactional matters within the Americas (as Regional Counsel – West), and he managed legal affairs within Latin America and the Caribbean Region (as Senior Counsel – Latin America).
“From project development to mergers and acquisitions, energy and mining are globally important and increasingly diverse sectors undergoing massive sea changes,” said Houston Office Managing Partner and Energy Sector Co-Lead Jeff Whittle. “Francisco’s in-house experience and institutional knowledge will be of tremendous value to our clients, both in Houston and across the firm’s international footprint.”
Balduzzi is fluent in Spanish and speaks and reads Portuguese, and has managed legal matters in diverse jurisdictions, including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Suriname, the United States, and Venezuela. He has significant corporate transactional experience in a range of areas, including mergers and acquisitions (including integration), divestitures, joint ventures, operational setup, compliance, and foreign investments.
“Adding Francisco to our Latin America practice and the broader Corporate and Securities group represents the firm’s continued commitment to meeting the complex and ever-changing needs of our clients – whatever and wherever they may be,” said Jamie Francis, who leads the firm’s Corporate and Securities group. “He is a consummate team builder, committed to client service, who will help further grow our practices in these important areas.”
Before moving in-house, Balduzzi served four years as a foreign legal consultant with a global law firm in Houston and six years as a senior associate with a firm based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He has been a member of multiple boards and served as president of the Houston Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel and as president of the board of directors of the Argentinian Petroleum and Gas Institute of Houston. In 2017, he was shortlisted for the International Law Office’s Global M&A Counsel of the Year.
He received his Master of Laws from Northwestern University School of Law and his Juris Doctor of Argentinian Law from Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina.
