Alumni Spotlight: German Savastano (2016-2017; New York)

To celebrate Cleary Gottlieb’s 75th anniversary, alumni around the globe are taking time to reflect on their experiences at the firm.

German Savastano, Head of Legal – Argentina, Uruguay & Paraguay at Uber in New York, shares his thoughts below.

What lessons did you learn at Cleary that prepared you for your future career?

During my time at Cleary, I had the opportunity to work on sophisticated matters with sophisticated clients, and the legal counsel we provided was always best in class. On this basis, one of the lessons I learnt was the importance of delivering a top notch legal service in every filing in litigation, call with a client or transactional document I worked on. In turn, this also allowed me to interact and learn from the best and most qualified attorneys on a wide range of legal subjects such as sovereign litigation, cross-border transactions and capital markets.

Nowadays, in my current position at Uber, I follow the same principles. In fact, as a business partner to a public company that has exponentially grown to what it is today by challenging the existing regulatory status quo and pushing the legal frontier to uncharted territories, we at the Legal department are at the forefront of developing disruptive legal strategies and our counselling has to be of top quality.

Secondly, another lesson from my time at Cleary was the impressive amount of hard work and creative solutions we would put into each matter, and how Cleary provided all necessary conditions for this to happen. It was not uncommon to put long and dedicated hours, with diverse teams based in multiple countries, into finding alternatives to solve clients’ pressing issues. This in turn involved developing a critical thinking and analytical mindset, especially when going through countless documents and an overwhelming amount of information under time constraints. Fast forward a few years to my current position, hard work and breakthrough solutions are our daily standard in a company where we believe that you “don’t come to Uber for easy”. In fact, with new tech products coming to market on a weekly basis, cities going back to normal as the world starts to recover from the pandemic and global business initiatives that require local execution, Uber provides me with a similar opportunity and challenges me to draw upon that very same legal thinking and analytical skills.

Why do you participate in the alumni network, and what would you say to someone who is considering getting involved?

At Cleary, I was very fortunate not only to develop professional connections but also to build long lasting friendships that endure until today. The network is a perfect ecosystem to nurture those bonds and, with alumni all over the world, I am just one click away from making a meaningful connection with someone that can provide a helping hand.

From a professional perspective, being part of the network offers me access to educational programs and social events, information on legal trends, Zoom happy hours with the Cleary family, and this interview spotlight, among others.

Finally, the significant effort that Elizabeth and Alumni Relations invest into the program, makes it extremely easy to participate in. The experience of being part of this network is second to none. Absolutely get involved, should be on your to-do list for 2021!

To learn more about Cleary’s global alumni network, click here.