René Paula, Vice President, Legal & Corporate Affairs and General Counsel of Zx Ventures. January 16, 2018….(Photo by David Handschuh/NYLJ)

René Paula heads the legal function for ZX Ventures, an incubator and venture capital firm that seeks to develop new products and businesses that address emerging consumer needs. Paula started at ZX two and a half years ago. There were 25 employees, and he was the only in-house lawyer. Since then, a lot has changed. Today he leads a department of 17 attorneys for the organization of more than 2,000 employees.

Before joining ZX, which is backed by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, Paula held legal roles at Amazon.com Inc.-owned Audible Inc. and ACX.com, as well as HSBC Securities Inc. Before going in-house in 2011, Paula was an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore for seven years. Paula spoke to Corporate Counsel reporter Stephanie Forshee about what ZX has brewing.

Corporate Counsel: What do you like most about your job?

René Paula: The scope of this job is so insanely broad. It's for adrenaline-driven tech lawyers. As a group, we kind of do it all. We are all generalists covering everything, so it is extremely exciting and extremely stressful. It's for a certain type of person, but I love it.

CC: What do you consider to be your biggest milestones since joining ZX?

RP: Going from a couple dozen [employees] to being in so many countries is incredible. At one point we were doing about one venture capital round of financing per month throughout 2016, which was an extremely fast pace. We averaged an acquisition every couple of months and we have launched so many e-commerce operations. It's been a race to build the bus as you're driving it down the highway.

I was also involved in the SAB transaction [valued at $100 billion]. I ran the divestiture of MillerCoors. Because of antitrust issues, if you buy the company, then you sell a portion of it. It was almost like a second job. It was the third-largest transaction of all time in M&A and it was a surreal experience.

CC: How did you become involved in the divestiture?

RP: When the SAB acquisition got announced, I just read it in the news like everybody else. I raised my hand and said, if you need help, let me know. Of course, I got a call about 30 seconds after clicking “send” on that email.

CC: What has been the biggest surprise for you at ZX?

RP: I think a lot of people think they're very international because they did one transaction somewhere once. But here, actually having operations in so many countries, the pace is absolutely insane. I have no option except to be on the phone at 10 p.m. pretty much every night with China and then 6 a.m. with some other countries. There's a 24/7 aspect.