Meet Our Leadership

Lécia Vicente is the Founder and Strategic Advisor of GLOB, which she established in the living room of her Lisbon apartment during a trip to Portugal and Italy. While staying connected to the news from the United States, where she began her academic career, she recognized a significant gap in today’s digital world: societal, legal, and economic institutions are struggling to keep pace with technological advancements. As digital platforms prioritize user engagement, they have inadvertently contributed to fragmentation and narrow perspectives. GLOB was born from Lécia’s vision to create an analytical framework that fosters greater cohesion and understanding within society and markets.

In addition to her advisory role at GLOB, Lécia is a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Camerino. Her research there focuses on developing legal frameworks to address economic challenges in the seismically active region of central Italy. She has recently accepted a professorship offer in the United States to further her research on institutions, business organizations, corporate governance, and geopolitics.

Since 2015, Lécia has served in various advisory roles within the United Nations system. Previously, she was the Henry Plauché Dart Endowed Assistant Professor of Law at Louisiana State University (LSU), where she taught business and comparative law, analyzing the laws of varied countries and jurisdictions to find differences and similarities. She has contributed to numerous research projects at higher education institutions, including the University of Camerino, the University of Lisbon, and UC Berkeley, and held visiting research positions at Fordham University School of Law, the University of Illinois, the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and the University of Helsinki. She has been invited to lecture, speak, and participate in conferences at prestigious universities such as UC Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, LUISS University, Tulane University, University of Missouri, ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon, University of Texas at Austin, Stockholm University, University of British Columbia, and others.

Lécia holds a Ph.D. and LL.M. in Comparative, European, and International Laws from the European University Institute, along with a postdoc from the University of Illinois. She graduated summa cum laude with an LL.B. from the Catholic University of Portugal. Her professional journey began as a practicing lawyer in international law firms, focusing on corporate, contract, real estate, and civil procedure laws across Portugal and Lusophone countries, including Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil.

Lécia’s expertise has extended to high-level international policy roles. In 2019, she served as a Delegate to the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, advising Angola’s Secretary of State for External Relations. She has also advised the African Union at various UN forums, including the Sustainable Development Summit and the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

Lécia’s scholarly work is widely published by prestigious publishers such as Cambridge University Press, and Oxford University Press, as well as in law reviews across the United States. She frequently speaks at academic events in the U.S., Europe, and Brazil, and her work has been featured in the popular press and specialized legal blogs. She is an elected member of the International Society of Comparative Law.

Sharmin N. Chougule is the Executive Director at GLOB and a doctoral researcher in Civil Law and Constitutional Legality at the University of Camerino (UNICAM), Italy. With over eight years of experience as a contract law attorney, she brings a wealth of expertise to her multifaceted roles, currently serving as an Independent Contracts Consultant with Integreon and a Senior Legal Advisor at White Bison, Zurich, where she specializes in corporate and compliance matters in technology-driven sectors.

Sharmin’s expertise lies at the intersection of law and technology, focusing on legal challenges in the Internet of Things (IoT) and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), with a particular emphasis on smart contracts. Her professional journey encompasses significant roles such as Corporate Counsel and Compliance Officer in India and Visiting Researcher positions at prestigious institutions, including UNIDROIT in Rome, CITIP at KU Leuven, and Reykjavík University.

As a Fellow at the International Center for Law & Economics, Sharmin contributes to advancing thought leadership in law and economics. In her role as a Member of the Academic Advisory Board at the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA), she provides a critical perspective on emerging technologies and their legal implications. Her work bridges the gap between academia and industry, with a focus on private law, compliance, and innovation.

Sharmin’s contributions underscore GLOB’s mission to drive impactful enterprise-academic collaborations and address the evolving challenges at the forefront of law, technology, and society.