Wilfredo Hernandez Constructs New Business

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Wilfredo Hernandez loves a challenge where there is no easy solution. It’s something that’s been present throughout his twenty-plus years at Hyundai Motor America—particularly with the launch of Genesis, the company’s luxury division.

“My job is to bring all my legal knowledge to bear, but at the same time, create something new that hasn’t been done before,” says Hernandez, who has logged nearly fifteen years of his tenure with US dealer franchise expertise at Hyundai.

In 2022, he accepted the next biggest challenge of his Hyundai tenure: deputy general counsel for the Americas strategic region. It was a chance to step into a global role. Though he wasn’t necessarily looking for such an opportunity, he warmly embraced it when it was created for him.

The Role

Hyundai needed a legal leader to support its distribution presence in the Latin American region, whether that required working with its captive distributors in Canada, Mexico, and Brazil, liaising with its independent distributors throughout Latin America, or providing legal support across the region for distribution and retail sales.

For those who aren’t experts in global auto distribution, let’s break it down quick.

You have the manufacturer or factory, Hyundai Motor Company (HMC), which is based in Seoul and manufactures its vehicles in several factories across South Korea. The manufacturer works with a series of captive distributors to distribute cars into countries outside Korea. Captive distributors, in turn, wholesale the vehicles to dealers, who retail the vehicles to customers.

Hyundai Motor America is one of HMC’s captive distributors, as well as Hyundai Motor Canada, Hyundai Motor Mexico, and Hyundai Motor Brazil. But there are many nations in Latin America—Argentina, the Caribbean, Chile, Colombia—that require working with independent distributors using master distribution agreements to bring Hyundai vehicles to Latin American consumers and into the Latin American stream of commerce.

The major focus for this new role was to review and revise the master distribution agreement for the Central and South American zones. Hyundai asked Hernandez to take it on.

For the past two years, he’s studied the laws and nuances from country to country across Latin America to draft a new agreement (a “master agreement”) that operates with a series of enabling documents, which include distributor and retailer operating agreements and new advertising standards.

“The master agreement says we want you to sell cars and that you’re going to use your best efforts to sell cars,” Hernandez explains. “The enabling documents advise distributors and the retailer body on how HMC expects its vehicle showrooms to look, how many models should be on your lots, sales targets, after-sales expectations, etc.”

As of July 2024, the drafting portion of the master document and most of the enabling documents have been completed. With two more enabling documents left to draft, the initial project is nearing the final stages.

Initially, the project was specific to the Latin American region. Now, it’s evolved into something global. Hernandez works with HMC’s legal department in Korea, the global dealer operations group in North America and Korea, and other departments across different global regions.

“Working with the various teams—particularly in Korea and Brazil—and with the global network development team, as well as the regional teams around the world, has been a tremendous honor.”

Wilfredo Hernandez, Jr.

The release of the new agreements will be deployed in a layered process as previous agreements expire and must be renewed.

The Experience

Stepping into the global role was a gear switch for Hernandez, who had primarily focused on US franchise law. “It is an ongoing learning experience about different legal systems around the world, and different distribution laws from country to country, so that’s been very challenging,” he says.

The role has also taught him a lot of patience. He sometimes catches people in different time zones or must understand that his requests might fall lower on others’ priority lists.

“Ultimately, it has opened my eyes to how we do business outside of the United States,” he says. “And my prior background from just doing US franchise law has helped. I’ve been able to assist by bringing some of my fifteen years of practice and what I know to try to introduce concepts to the rest of the world, sharing ideas back and forth with other countries regarding best distribution and retail sales practices.”

And Hernandez couldn’t speak more highly of the teams he has worked with the past two years as he’s settled into his role. “Working with the various teams—particularly in Korea and Brazil—and with the global network development team, as well as the regional teams around the world, has been a tremendous honor.”

In North America, Hernandez operates as a team of one. He works closely with the legal departments in Mexico and Brazil that deal with distribution, and different colleagues across the continent of South and Central America.

For him, it’s not about hierarchy or dotted lines about who reports to whom. “We’re just a team working across borders, across thousands of miles, and across different time zones,” he affirms. “We always find a time where three or four teams can get together and talk about difficult legal concepts and then come to a collective reasoning and collective resolution as to how we’re going to proceed. And that’s been extremely gratifying.”

The Satisfaction

Wilfredo Hernandez loves a challenge, and he’s found it with drafting a new master distribution agreement that the global enterprise now believes can be deployed beyond the initial region of Latin America. He dove feet first into learning the nuances of law from country to country, connected with colleagues across regions to determine the best course of action, and brought his own expertise to the global stage.

“This definitely satiated the curiosity, appetite, as well as the novelty of it all,” he says. “And I feel like when this is deployed, that the network globally, over time, will have a much better sense of expectation and direction, and that the flow of commerce and the sale of vehicles will be facilitated greatly by this new agreement and the enabling documents.”  This is particularly crucial with the deployment of new Hyundai (and Genesis) models, as well as the new electric vehicle model lineup that has entered the stream of commerce.  He is very grateful to his employer and its current chief operating officer, Jose Munoz, who have afforded him this wonderful opportunity. 

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