Mónica Jiménez González

When I immigrated to Canada 18 years ago, my South American university degree was of no value to the Canadian market – the firms in Canada wanted Canadian experience. Thankfully, I managed to get into a small boutique firm and from there a bigger firm. When I entered Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, everyone had graduated from the University of Vancouver – and most of them were men. There weren’t many women lawyers in general, but even more scarce were female lawyers from the international jurisdiction. At that time, I was quite ‘exotic.’ Not only was I an immigrant, I was a woman, and not being the same as everyone was a challenge. I started at Fasken as an associate who spoke two languages and who also had two master’s degrees. Despite my high level of education, the first thing I encountered was people telling me ‘oh good, you speak two languages – so you’re the translator’. And I accepted this, thinking that it wasn’t too bad as an immigrant, as a woman, and as someone who didn’t have the same social exposure as my colleagues. I had to prove myself twice as much.

I gravitated towards corporate law because I liked trying to figure out how to make a difference with respect to how society is impacted by corporations. I’ve also had a keen interest in international human rights law since I graduated, and in my current role at Ecopetrol, I’m lucky that both of those aspects of law combine. I’m leading initiatives related not only to corporate governance but also to corporate communications and corporate responsibility. The latter looks at the standards to which the company complies and this includes going the extra mile – it’s more than revenue, it’s about being a good corporate citizen. In that area, we also look at a lot of human rights matters.