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Our firm is composed of experienced professionals who have worked at large multinational companies, law firms, audit and accounting firms.
ROBERT KOHN
Robert Kohn is a seasoned professional with over 18 years of global legal and business experience. He founded the Kohn Consulting Group (“KCG”) to provide companies in Brazil with insightful and creative solutions to monumental legal challenges that their external advisors are not currently addressing. KCG is a management consulting firm specialized in advising legal departments in Brazil on how to achieve significant cost savings through improved financial management, strategy, operational efficiencies and internal controls, including better use and oversight of outside counsel.
Having worked and lived in Brazil, Robert’s in-depth knowledge of the country’s legal system and business environment enables him to understand, develop and implement plans to facilitate changes necessary to achieve his clients’ goals. With his powerful vision of change, Robert is uniquely positioned to impact a corporate legal department’s productivity and long-term success. His extensive technical knowledge allows him to develop robust internal control systems that substantially reduce operating costs. Robert’s successful implementation of restructuring and change management has earned him a reputation as a proactive, innovative leader. He has proven to be an adroit trouble-shooter and turnaround expert. More importantly, the changes Robert has implemented have been sustainable and have resulted in progressive reductions across many metrics.
Prior to starting KCG, Robert served as General Counsel in a variety of regional and business lines for The AES Corporation and NRG Energy, Fortune 150 and 500 companies, respectively. He also worked as an attorney at an AmLaw 100 law firm in its Latin America and International Practice Groups.
Robert led the reorganization and restructuring of the Legal Department in AES Brazil, the company’s largest P&L operation. He was responsible for successfully reducing the Legal Department’s Operating Expense Budget by 50% and administrative expenses by 90%. Robert identified and directed teams to lower legal contingencies by more than US$100 million and reduced external legal fees by over US$150 million. He also revamped the Legal Department’s budget, business plan and internal controls, including the creation and management of an eight-person Legal Controller Group, where he managed all accounting functions for approximately US$135 million in operations.
Robert holds a J.D. from the American University’s Washington College of Law, a Diplôme d’Etudes Juridiques Internationales et Européennes from the Université de Paris and a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. At Georgetown, he earned the Honors Certificate in Latin American Studies as well as the Rowe Award for Outstanding Student in Latin American Studies. Robert is also a member of the Bar of New York, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Virginia and the United States Supreme Court. He provides pro bono services for the Legal Services of Northern Virginia. He is fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and French, in addition to his native English. In the past, Robert has held positions on the Boards of Directors of the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce (Atlanta) and the Atlanta Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. He is married and has two children.
MARCELO VALENZUELA
Marcelo Valenzuela is a professional with over 24 years of experience gained in large law firms and national and multinational companies, having developed the necessary skill to design and implement preventive processes to reduce legal contingencies as well as a broad vision of the legal and business environment.
He was a pioneer in the design and development of a Conciliation Center, including the training of support staff and the implementation of litigation intelligence focused on addressing pré-judicial and judicial negotiations in order to achieve a settlement, the increased control on contingencies and root cause analysis, resulting in improved metrics / outputs lawsuits and narrowing of the business to court.
Before becoming a founding partner of Kohn Consulting Group, he served in the legal department of AES Brazil (AES Eletropaulo, AES Tietê, AES Sul, Eletropaulo Telecom) leading a team of 39 people, raising R $ 50MM in collection actions, reducing the total number of lawsuits by more than 17 thousand cases, and the lowering of R$ 290 million in accruals.
Marcelo graduated from the Faculdades Metropolitanas Unidas and has specializations in civil law from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica and Energy Law from Fundação Getulio Vargas. He is married and has three children.