Latin America has a rich and diverse culture with a population of over 660 million people from many different ethnic groups and cultural ancestries. Due to the region’s diversity, it is essential for companies and their workforces to continuously prioritize the need for diversity and inclusion in their general work environments, including in their boards and senior management positions, which data indicates are more than 90% occupied by men, mostly from a similar ethnic group.

Studies show that Latin American women are underrepresented among the top echelons of the legal profession – as they also are in the wider corporate environment – despite having a higher level of education than their male counterparts on average (as is the case in Brazil, for instance) or them representing half of the students in law school (as is the case in Mexico).

In the region, both the legal profession and the wider corporate environment face similar challenges in terms of gender equality.

The causes of this inequality are perceived by women as being rooted in the traditional unequal distribution of domestic tasks, the culture of ‘machismo’ and unconscious bias. Apart from purely career-related consequences, these causes also result in other unwanted behaviours, such as workplace harassment, which is frequently mentioned by women when asked about their working conditions.

Much remains to be done in this regard, but over the past 20 years, diverse groups have been trying to raise their voices to increase awareness and fight for their rights and needs. In particular, women have launched initiatives which aim at empowering themselves into a force to be reckoned with and at making opportunities for themselves. They have created groups – like Lawyers in Skirts, in Brazil – to develop their network and mentor each other to achieve their career objectives.

These groups organise workshops and conferences about inclusion, diversity, and women leadership, and have brought to the public’s attention that the evolution of these issues is intricately linked to the economic development of their region and respective countries.

Indeed, gender equality has been proven to contribute to poverty reduction and economic development. According to a McKinsey study, there would be an 11% automatic increase in the global GDP if the gender gap were closed, and specifically, the Latin American GDP would increase by 14% if women were encouraged and assisted in participating as economic actors.

The groups have reached out to female lawyers from other jurisdictions, where accessing top positions is perceived to be easier, and often receive their support. The organisation WILL (Women in Leadership in Latin America), a São Paulo-based non-profit unit, now has advisory boards in Bogotá, the US and London, which enable them to have access to a wider audience and help established lawyers, as well as aspiring ones supporting them throughout their careers.

These organisations already see improvement in top-tier law firms and corporations, but they now want to reach all women with legal degrees, and even expand their programmes to universities, broadening their socio-economic reach into any social group or institution where bias might lurk.

Interestingly, despite women finding it challenging not to have peers to exchange ideas with when they make it to the top echelons of a law firm, it appears that some of these organisations – like Abogadas MX, in Mexico – are admitting men as workshop participants, allies and even board members and mentors. Generally, the non-profits have found this experience enriching, and have discovered that their presence brings the opportunity for a synergistic learning experience, showing that diversity is a question that concerns us all, regardless of gender.

In most cases, if not in all, these groups work towards women being in a fair competition with men – they do not advocate for women to be given extra rights solely based on their gender, but rather, an even playing field.

And indeed, after years of fieldwork, they conclude that lawyers can help:

1. They can impact policies and laws through the specialized skills of their profession and demonstrate how important it is to support women in general. In several jurisdictions, women do not have access to courts or fair laws, for instance, and some gender-related legal issues, like gender violence, are still common in Latin America. Consequently, they feel that there is a lot of space to improve the laws, but also to give equal access to the court system.
2. At a corporate level, lawyers can participate in advocating and creating policies for companies that need to adopt gender inclusion and diversity policies.
3. Furthermore, employees rely upon legal departments to be stewards of ethics and good governance, meaning that these departments must set a good example and promote diversity and inclusion themselves.

Their influence over corporate policies might even be greater in the post-Covid-19 pandemic world. The above-mentioned McKinsey study shows that during the pandemic, women, LGBTQ+ people, POC and parents were found to be struggling more with issues such as mental health, work-life balance, isolation (from co-workers and managers) and job opportunities. These issues were also more pronounced in emerging economies and, in several jurisdictions, were accentuated by a surge in gender-based violence linked to the work-from-home policies.

Many companies have since attempted to offer more policies that are responsive to these struggles and provide greater balance, flexibility, and improve their internal communication.

Given the importance of D&I, this report intends to offer fresh perspectives and insights from across the Americas on where we are as a legal community and also suggestions on what is working to advance inclusion across the Americas.

Through interviews with leading GCs from all over the region, we found that though the situations and nuances differed from country to country, and some seem to be doing better than others there is much that can be learned from one another.

Colombia, for instance, has a high percentage of women in leadership positions, and women have space in the corporate world. In Brazil, however, gender inequality seems to come in addition to other discriminations, such as sexual orientation or ethnicity.

The consensus we found is that, in addition to improving the corporate culture, the legal and regulatory frameworks could be modified to help with D&I. For instance, more transparency could be asked from companies about their hiring/promotion processes and policies could be passed to protect D&I leaders within companies, etc.

However, implementing a change entails asking people to change their behaviour, which they might resist. This requires leadership, diplomacy and pedagogy, and to place the right people in the right positions.

Boards and management teams should always be transparent as to what they are trying to achieve, how they are trying to achieve it, and they should be able to measure the results of any new policy.

In a sense, leveraging the collective experience of a diverse workforce is not as simple as hiring different people and alchemizing their perspectives into corporate gold. Inclusion is as fundamental – it is essential to create an environment where diverse people can feel welcome enough to perform at their full potential.

Maria-Leticia Ossa Daza
Chair of the Latin America Practice
Willkie Farr & Gallagher

Allan Cohen
Research Editor
The Legal 500: In-House Research Team

It is a fact that the hiring process is often dogged by bias. Of course, hiring managers do not reject applications from minority candidates, but unconscious biases have been shown time and again to skew hiring decisions.

Diverse applicants are acutely aware of the risks.

‘Back in the early 2000s, I found that it was very easy to identify who diverse candidates were’, says Phyllis Harris, general counsel, chief compliance, ethics and government relations officer, at the American Red Cross.

‘You could pick it up from a school, a name, you might pick it up from the organization. What is interesting is that, over time, I have seen a 180° whitewashing in résumés. There are candidates out there that believe that they are not going to get an opportunity to interview if someone can readily identify their racial make-up and their racial identity. I know people who have gone as far as changing their first name because they did not want to stand out.’

‘We like to talk about inauthenticity. How inauthentic are you if you have to make a conscious decision to say this résumé cannot in any way reflect that I am African American or that I am native American? You are going into a workplace and, on the very first day, you are not comfortable in being yourself.’

But what if you could remove bias from the hiring process? Some claim that you can.

Automated hiring introduces technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into the recruitment process, helping to pre-screen résumés that do not meet requirements. In some cases, these tools are now being used to eliminate the need for a human interviewer to interact with prospective new hires. If the process is less human, there will be less scope for human preconceptions to overlook the best talent. Right?

Not according to Ifeoma Ajunwa, associate professor of Law at UNC School of Law, and founding director of the school’s artificial intelligence and decision-making research program. She has seen workplaces embrace algorithm-based technologies for convenience and cost-savings in the recruitment process – as well as in other areas such as training, safety or productivity monitoring and surveillance – filtering out high volumes of applicants, even in white-collar roles. But she has grave misgivings about its potential for discrimination.

‘Automated hiring is seen by a lot of white shoe firms and big companies as an anti-bias intervention. A lot of these firms are turning to automated hiring in good will, with good intentions – they think it’s a way to ameliorate the bias of hiring,’ she explains.

‘The problem, however, is that because hiring platforms are not well regulated, the reality is that they are in fact replicating the bias that already exists and they could actually be exacerbating it. If you have a flaw in an automated hiring system, that flaw is prone to be replicated a million times, versus when you have one biased manager.’

Disparate impact

The problem is that of disparate impact – apparently neutral processes whose outcomes are nevertheless harmful – where a butterfly-wing beat of inattention, ignorance or worse, can set off a tornado of exclusion.

Ajunwa gives the example of video interviewing platforms that use algorithms to measure variables like eye contact or syntax, potentially impacting candidates with autism or deafness, she says.

Closer to home, she describes the case of a former student, a computer science PhD postgrad who was rejected by a major company. On meeting with a company representative at a job fair, it became clear that her skills were perfect for the organization, and, in surprise, the representative investigated. It transpired that an automated program had screened out applicants with a BA in computer science, in favour of those with a BS.

‘It’s not really a meaningful difference. But then you also have to think about, could this have other disparate impacts? Who’s more likely to get a BA in computer science versus a BS? Could this actually have bigger disparate impacts than we know?’ she says.

‘There won’t always be quick fixes.’

Where the puck is going

Ajunwa believes that such consequential decisions being left to technology merits legal attention – and she pinpoints in-house lawyers as playing a potentially significant role in such scrutiny.

‘I think in-house lawyers are particularly at the forefront of the scene, because some of them may be general counsels advising clients on what sort of hiring programs to put in place. So they do need to be aware of these issues with automated hiring because many vendors will be trying to sell automated hiring programs to large firms, and there really is the duty of these general counsels to ensure that the client isn’t taking on a program that is going to be more of a liability than a help,’ she says.

‘At the bottom line, there’s a huge liability if companies get these issues wrong. There’s an important legal liability,’ adds Nuala O’Connor, senior vice president and chief counsel, Digital Citizenship at Walmart.

The extent of the exposure to that liability won’t be evident until the process is run, and the output – potentially reflective of biases along racial, ethnic, national origin and other discriminatory lines – there for all to see. But that’s the baseline, says O’Connor.

‘I’ve always believed that the role of in-house counsel is not just to say what the law is, but to lift up the company and say, “This is what the right thing is”. The role of the savvy in-house counsel when dealing with emerging technology is a little like the ice hockey saying – you’re looking where the puck is going, not where the puck is. This is where the puck is going. Increased use of technology, increased use of data, increased scrutiny. Increased scrutiny of the values,’ she explains.

‘Just as companies are being scrutinized for the values they espouse and having to take positions on controversial social issues, the technology and the data uses of the company are going to be scrutinized for the values inherent in those programs, policies, processes. I think that the smart lawyer and the smart counselor inside is looking at: “what have we built? How is it working, how is it functioning?” This is the digital architecture of a company, just like the four walls of a store are the physical architecture of our company, and it demands as much scrutiny.’

Lisa LeCointe-Cephas, chief ethics and compliance officer at Merck International, has not worked with automated HR systems, but she is conscious of her responsibility to consider where bias might hide in processes and tools.

‘Last week I took one of our new diversity, equity and inclusion trainings from the perspective of a black woman – “How does this read for me?” I’m very vocal about providing feedback on that, because I do think that a lot of the things that we’re building to help us, at times, can actually have biases built into them.’

She believes this awareness should also be applied to potential algorithmic bias within automated tools.

‘I’m fascinated by a lot of that work. There are these new platforms that allow you to say, “You know what? Bob is great. We want to get another Bob. And so, what are the characteristics of Bob that allow us to get another person who will be just successful?” I do worry that a lot of those things have inherent biases built into them,’ she says.

But Ajunwa feels that many in-house lawyers are not truly cognizant of the risks.

‘I think, frankly, that maybe in-house lawyers are just not as technologically astute or as technologically attuned to the nuances of how a lot of automated tools work – such that automated tools that might seem innocuous or that might be neutral could, for example, still have proxy variables that they are using, which are making them ultimately unlawfully discriminatory,’ she explains.

Digital ethics and the law

At Walmart, O’Connor is one of a growing band of corporate counsel looking at the intersection between ethics and the evolving digital ecosystem inside companies. Former president and CEO of civil liberties non-profit the Center for Democracy and Technology, O’Connor now heads up a new function called ‘Digital Citizenship’, which includes lawyers, compliance and policy professionals, as well as technologists and data architects. The organization also includes a program team called ‘Digital Values’, specifically tasked with scrutinizing values embedded in AI and ML.

Legal and digital ethics skills are increasingly at a premium, she says, putting the field in the context of mounting regulatory and corporate attention being paid to technology and data practices.

‘I do think it’s a growing field. It’s looking at technology through that civil liberties lens and through that fairness lens and being a lawyer who can help do that, I think is going to be an incredibly valuable skill,’ she says.

‘We talk a lot about the role of privacy, and I sometimes cringe a little bit because I don’t think it’s just privacy anymore. Data protection is necessary but not sufficient. It’s got to be secure; it’s got to be safe, it’s got to be held to the standards and promises that were made when the data was collected. But the use of that data has also got to be fair, it’s got to be transparent, it’s got to be accountable.’

So, how can companies distinguish between platforms selling what O’Connor terms ‘digital snake oil’ and genuinely helpful tools? And how can they make sure that genuinely helpful technologies do not amplify bias and exclusion?

Authentic auditing

For Ajunwa, the answer is auditing – an ongoing, authentic process, where disparate impacts are not only identified, but corrected. And she believes it should fall to general counsel to ensure that appropriate professionals are hired.

‘Ultimately, if there is an issue of discrimination, the employer is still responsible. The mere fact of delegating hiring to automated hiring platforms does not remove the legal responsibility to refrain from employment discrimination,’ she warns.

Some employers are sitting up and tackling the risks. In December 2021, the Data & Trust Alliance – a non-profit global consortium of leading businesses formed in September 2020 – announced a set of criteria to mitigate data and algorithmic bias in HR and workforce decisions. In recognition of the risks inherent in its members’ increased application of data, algorithms and AI in the search for talent, these ‘Algorithmic Bias Safeguards’ are intended to help companies assess vendors on criteria such as training data and model designs, bias testing methods and bias remediation, among others. They will be used by companies like American Express, CVS Health and Walmart.

O’Connor has been closely involved, since the Alliance knocked on her door to leverage the skills of her team.

‘It really was a top-down, CEO to CEO conversation that these companies are waking up to the realization they have a lot of information and data about people, they wanted to do good things with it, better things than I think the public perception is of what the amalgamation of data could mean for their personal lives,’ she says.

‘Most importantly, this is not just: “let’s put up a page of principles on the wall and it’s all good.” We’ve all done that as companies already; that’s a baseline. This is: “how do we implement? How do we operationalize? What are the questions we have to ask our vendors? What are the processes we should put in place?”’

O’Connor co-chairs the Alliance’s algorithmic decision-making in HR working group, which met weekly to consider how automated HR tools should be evaluated for bias and implemented across the HR, procurement and IT departments. The safeguards are the culmination of that project, including checklists for vendors, anti-bias diagnostic tools and metrics for outcomes.

‘Here are all the values, here are the ways you should be scrutinizing your tools, here are the places in the company that these tools might be implemented, whether that’s in hiring of new people, or an area I think that’s overlooked is advancement and promotion – who are we looking at when we’re creating new jobs or promoting people and who is getting to go on learning opportunities?’ she explains.

‘It can be as granular as: let’s look at the code and see what it does, or as general as: here are five questions you should ask your vendor. And I think it’s tailorable to small, medium and large enterprises.’

O’Connor describes other Alliance projects – one on the use of data and technology in M&A due diligence, to look at how data and technology assets are considered in the acquisition or divestiture of companies, as well as the transfer of privacy policies and commitment when entities change form.

Another studies responsible personalization, examining the values input into tailored online experiences, and the values behind the exposure of people to advertisements for products as diverse as clothing, mortgage loans or educational opportunities.

For companies able to successfully audit and uncover bias and unlawful discrimination, says Ajunwa, perhaps the stickier question is how to go about correcting it.

‘Sometimes you might think you’re using variables that are quite important for the job description or for your industry, but those factors or variables may perhaps have historically racial bias baked in,’ she says.

‘That then becomes a bigger conversation on how you disentangle variables that are widely used in your industry from racial bias.’

For O’Connor, that conversation has to prize humanity above isolated attributes: ‘It’s not just the data, it’s the decision. What is the judgment that you are applying to a human being and is that fair, is that honouring their full humanity, or is that diminishing them to some kind of stereotype or corner of the universe? I’m a believer that technology can be used to open people’s minds and horizons, but we do need to scrutinize it to make sure that’s actually what’s happening.’

Regulation

Whatever the conversations happening in-house, Ajunwa argues that auditing should also come from outside – from interventions by government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

At the state level, interest is growing and December 2021 saw a bill regulating the use of AI by employers become law in New York City, effective from January 2023. The bill requires companies to conduct a bias audit on automated employment decision tools, to notify candidates living in the city that such a tool will be used and which qualifications and characteristics it will assess, and provide the opportunity to request an alternative process.

At the federal level, the EEOC announced the launch of an initiative to ensure that AI and other hiring and employment decision-making tech tools do not discriminate unlawfully in October last year.

‘My greatest wish is for governmental agencies to really take more charge of regulating this arena of automated decision-making,’ says Ajunwa.

For now, the EEOC plans to prepare technical assistance to provide guidance on algorithmic fairness and AI use in employment decisions. But, Ajunwa believes that judicious use of similar technology could actually assist in the process of creating and enforcing regulation.

‘I think they can do it by actually deploying some automated decision-making tools themselves. The EEOC could use automated decision-making tools to search for disparate impacts from automated hiring platforms or other online platforms. The FTC, which is in charge of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, could actually use that to ensure applicants get more information about their online applications – basically they can use it to reverse the current informational asymmetry between employees and employers when it comes to automated hiring.’

Stepping out of the silo

For data ethics to exist outside of a vacuum, and for any efforts at mitigating bias and disparate impacts in automated employment decision-making to succeed, they must be part of a collaborative effort, says Ajunwa.

‘There is this siloed effect, where you have ethics organizations off to the side writing papers, doing research, and then you have corporations also off to the side, and there’s not really enough conversation between the two,’ she says.

She hopes that more corporations will collaborate with leading edge social and computer science researchers and legal scholars in evaluating their programs and flagging issues.

‘I know of companies using what they claim is research to create automated hiring programs, but it’s research from the 1960s. Yeah, sure it’s research, but I can guarantee you how dated, probably racially and gender biased, and so on that will be,’ she says.

The Data & Trust Alliance has also taken a multi-disciplinary approach: O’Connor’s working group brings together professionals from the fields of law, technology, procurement and diversity. The resulting algorithmic bias vendor evaluation criteria were developed by a coalition of member companies, with input from vendors, business, academia and civil society.

At UNC Law School, Ajunwa has worked to broaden the skillset of lawyers themselves, founding the Artificial Intelligence and Decision-Making Research Program in recognition of the need for a new generation of lawyers to understand not only the nuances of the law, but also the capabilities and potential of emerging technology – and what legal issues could arise.

To ensure the message is reaching employers, Ajunwa also sits on a technology advisory council for a Fortune 500 company, providing expert ethical opinion and advice on products and relationships.

‘Currently our model of dealing with discrimination in the United States is flawed. We have a litigation paradigm where you are basically putting out fires after they’ve already started. I think general counsels should counsel their corporations to rethink that model and not wait until they are faced with litigation to address potential issues,’ she says.

‘Instead of waiting to get a lawsuit and then scrambling to defend themselves, maybe they should have advisory councils already in place so that they can get concrete and useful advice as they are conceiving and rolling out products and entering into relationships with other corporations or entities such as governments. A tech advisory council is useful for that and can actually spot issues before they start – they can spot hotspots before they turn into a full-blown fire.’

I think we are starting to see some first steps towards real change in terms of greater diversity and inclusion. But there is still a long way to go. Most of these discussions (maybe with the exception of that around gender diversity, which is a conversation that has been going on for a while, with limited progress – the glass ceiling is still very real) are fairly new in the region. So, even though there is some progress, it is still incipient. And it would also be naive to say that there is not some good amount of performative discussions taking place.

However, we have seen a lot of companies and many startups in the region making deliberate efforts to promote diversity. They have launched honest (and, in many cases, successful) initiatives aimed at recruiting diverse teams and fostering inclusive cultures. And that is wonderful. My sense is it is probably easier (and more critical) for younger companies to take diversity seriously from the start. Younger people are typically more aware and vocal about these questions. Also, investors (who are obviously critical pieces in the startup ecosystem) are increasingly concerned about this. So, this is likely to foster more inclusive environments, as everyone’s incentives are aligned.

Tech (and finance) has traditionally been a male-dominated arena and there are structural reasons that make change slow and difficult. In tech, the problem starts at an early age, given prevailing stereotypes (e.g., “boys are better at science than girls”). For instance, the toy offer for girls traditionally has been focused towards nurturing roles, whereas for boys it has typically emphasized Stem abilities and physical activity. What follows is less girls engaging in Stem subjects (especially at an advanced level) and then going into tech-intensive careers. As a consequence, there are few role-models for women within the sector. So, there is a vicious cycle, because there are just less women engineers/developers in the market, which means you have to make a conscious effort to look for these women when recruiting for these roles (which, in our case, is all the time). And then, there are also unconscious biases that we are trying to fight (and to prove incorrect). For instance, though merely anecdotal, we have seen that our women developers and data scientists are more likely to hire other women – who then turn out to perform just as well, if not better, than their male peers.

I am fortunate to be part of a company where we take diversity seriously – and where we are very much aware of the many challenges ahead of us. Our leadership team is very diverse along a lot of dimensions, especially for Latin American standards. And this is not a coincidence.

In terms of specific measures we have taken at Addi, for instance, we have adopted a parental leave that is more generous than what is legally required and that does not discriminate on the basis of gender or gender identity – or on the basis of how a person becomes a parent. What this means is that our parental leave is fundamentally the same for all of the company’s colleagues – and it is mandatory for everyone. So, everyone gets to enjoy the same benefit – and fear the same fear when leaving their job for months. We also make a conscious effort to make sure we have fair compensation bands, so that people get paid on the basis of their role, qualifications, performance, etc., not on their negotiating abilities. As far as the legal team is concerned, I am proud to say that it is fundamentally female and that it works fine. Of course, this is not a policy – I have extended offers to male colleagues. But it does warm my heart to see this as a wonderful experiment of professional sisterhood and women partnering with other women.

Unfortunately (?), there is not a rulebook to follow. However, I can think of the following ideas (which are not necessarily focused in legal):

• Find mentors and advocates and cultivate those relationships (and then be a mentor and advocate for others);
• Build networks (e.g., affinity groups) with your peers and rely on them. Welcome newcomers into these groups and be open to help people coming in – after one month you already know more than someone who is just coming in;
• Try to release yourself from the pressure of having to represent all of your minority group. Do the best you can, and do it for you;
• Find places that actually value integrity, transparency and where you can have direct, open and honest conversations – in reality, not on paper.

During the last few years, awareness of diversity and inclusion has gained relevance in the business world, and organizations that promote gender equity and diversity are more positively accepted by society. In Latin America, we have been advancing that line and there is an evident increase in the participation and the commitment of chief executives regarding these topics.
We have made great progress in diversity and inclusion in the region.

We still have much to do – for example, there is a low percentage of organizations led by women, technical areas have a small participation of female talent, and I think what is very evident in the region is a gender-based salary gap.

Colombia has a high percentage of women in leadership positions, and we have space in the corporate world as well as in consultancy and the commercial world. I think Colombian women have gained very important space in business life.

Promoting diversity and encouraging an inclusive leadership style does not only follow social justice principles but it also brings important advantages for businesses, and I think it is viewed in that way in Colombia. It is the principle that guides corporations and opportunities here in the country.

Tone from the top

At Telefónica Colombia, diversity management is a key element of our global strategy. We believe that promoting diversity in our teams and encouraging an inclusive leadership style brings important advantages for the growth of the company and for the wellbeing of the employees. It allows us to attract and retain the best talent, boosts innovation and come closer to a diverse and changing society. That’s why our company is committed to the equity of opportunities and the undiscriminating inclusion of our people. I think that has gained terrain, not only in Telefónica Colombia, but also in the majority of the big organizations in the country, and as organizations act that way, it is an example for society and for the rest of the organizations – it is cultural, to give opportunities and to open the space.

We have a strategy for diversity and inclusion at Telefónica that is divided into five dimensions. One is gender, the other is new generations, the LGBTQIA+ community, disabled people and multicultural interaction.

So for example, in gender equity we have a transparent and unbiased recruitment and selection process; internal and external communications, with memos promoting inclusive language; actions to increase the participation of women in traditionally masculine areas, like the technical areas and, to some extent, the financial area as well; and actions promoting balance between work and personal life.

In the dimension of new generations, we have actions to promote job talent, and we recognize outstanding employees under 35 years of age.

We generate a safe work environment for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, for example by offering extensive benefits, like wedding time, mourning time and parental leave, among others. We have a communications campaign regarding respect and inclusion, and participation in Pride Connection to share and to learn good practices.

We promote the inclusion of people affected by different disabilities as employees and we are trying to attend to the needs of these people as well. We have 32 accessible service centres in the national territory providing specialized attention for people with disabilities, a special attention protocol for people with visual and auditory disabilities, and we have accessible mobile devices.

In the multicultural interaction area, we promote inclusion of people from different ethnic sectors and countries.

Thinking big

As a legal team, we follow the general principles of the organization. As a leader, I actively participate in the local diversity council, and I have had the opportunity to participate in the organization’s female leadership program.

The diversity council is a council in which we establish actions with respect to diversity and inclusion strategy. We establish actions and we follow those actions to meet our objectives with respect to the different dimensions of our diversity and inclusion plan.

In the female leadership program, we empower women. It is a formal program with different speakers, it has a regular space weekly, and there is a graduation ceremony for a selected group of women every year that participate. We share the experience of different women in the organization who have grown and show the women that there is a huge landscape and space, and what they have to do is dare to be part of the recruitment process for different opportunities that we might have, not only locally but regionally. It’s a way to push them to think big, to think that we are capable and there’s no limit.

In the legal area, we consider diversity to be an advantage that boosts our work team. We believe that diversity and differences promote empathy and innovation, generate value in the business and have a positive impact on our resources. At the top of the legal team, we have very good female representation – I’m a woman and I’m the leader of the legal team, but all my direct reports in Colombia are also women. In the region, eight out of eight general counsels are women. So, we are aware of the importance of giving space to women in these positions, of empowering women, and making women visibile in the company, participating in the most important business projects.

Building influence through business partnership

I think lawyers, and everybody, can be potential agents for diversity, and it is the responsibility of everybody to do so.

As lawyers, we have to work hard in order to be close to the business, because we want to be involved at all stages of the business cycle – we want to be business partners, and not just ‘a stage’. That gives us opportunity, visibility, and experience – we gain space, and we gain relevance and importance for the business. Also, lawyers must be open-minded, and not think only about the legal issues, but mix our legal knowledge with business knowledge, which is great for the growth and professional career of the lawyers. We are working to be more flexible, especially in terms of digitalisation tools, because to be one step ahead, you have to have the agility, versatility and the digital knowledge that nowadays is required to be on the cutting-edge.

Diversity and inclusion is near and dear to me, because I am part of the LGBTQIA+ community. I didn’t come out of the closet because I was never in there, and although I was very private in the early years of my career, I never tried to be someone that I wasn’t.

However, in the traditional financial markets, I felt a lot of anxiety for many, many years. I felt that because of my sexual orientation there was a limit to my success, to how far I could go in the corporate structure, because I couldn’t see anyone in senior leadership positions that I could relate to, no one was out in that particular industry in Brazil. I used to hear minor aggressions almost every day, jokes that I thought I had to live with. Although I put a lot of effort into my career and working was such an important pillar of my life, I believed for many years that my personal situation was a ‘ceiling’.

Part of a movement

In 2012, I went to work at HSBC. It was my first leadership position; I was hired there to lead a team of 12 people and be responsible for the legal advice for many parts of the business. And there I started to see that maybe those limits or those restrictions were more in my mind than out there. I started to see a movement of people being themselves about their sexual orientation, people being able to introduce their partners in social events, and even getting educated about how the bank in the UK dealt with this internally. I started to think that maybe it could be a good thing, I could even be part of a movement and talk about an experience that, for me, was very difficult before.

I was still very private at that point; I didn’t talk about my personal life at all at work. But I felt that people welcomed that, maybe people didn’t care, which was great. And the structure of the organization even gave people incentives to get involved in ERG groups, affinity groups, the Pride group, and so on.

In 2015, I started to be very involved in D&I groups and discussions in Latin America, where it’s much more challenging than in the UK, Europe or the US. I realized I could use my voice from my place of professional success to tell others that they should feel safe. At least, in that organization, I felt that this was true. I lived in Argentina for a couple of years, and there I was the first executive sponsor of a Pride group who was also a member of the group. We launched the Pride Committee in Argentina – a country that is open from the legal side, much more open than Brazil, but society is not necessarily the same.

An OUTstanding leader

Because of that work, I decided to join panels to talk about it and, in 2017, I was the first Latin American named in the Financial Times list of 100 OUTstanding LGBT leaders and allies. This came as a huge responsibility for me because I was the first Latin American there. Today, we have others, which makes me very glad. I didn’t know it, but I think that was the validation I needed as a person: to really believe that I deserved to be where I was, separate from my personal situation, because sometimes I felt that I didn’t – that I didn’t fit. Because every time I was with my peers, I didn’t have stories to talk about children, the more traditional family type of talk, I always felt left out.

Since then, I have realized that the aspects of D&I I have had exposure to are very limited. Although I am a gay man, I am white, I am cis and I come from a family that gave me all the opportunities for success – to go to the best schools, to learn English, to live abroad. So I refreshed the way I am working in relation to D&I. Two or three years ago, I started to get educated about racial justice, something that I’m very committed to get educated about in a system that is purely made for the success of white people.

Now I’m putting myself in the humble position of getting educated about how I can get exposure to diversity in my country that is very different from my reality. I’m not diminishing whatever challenges I had to face, but I’ve just realized that I cannot stop here, that I need to go much further as a leader – correct some injustices, broaden the access of opportunities in law schools and in our legal departments to people that have never had them before.

In terms of my personal experience, I had this first wave, where I could say ‘Ok, I’m here’. But I felt I needed to be that role model – a gay guy who speaks many languages, who has travelled the world, etc. The financial industry likes gay people, but they like those role models that look perfect, which I am not! And also it’s from a static point of view – you can be out, but you do not be an activist.

The importance of being yourself

At Nubank, I think I have achieved the true opportunity to be myself. Since feeling more able to be open about my personal life, I feel happier. I think that’s the easiest way to put it. I feel lighter. I feel that I don’t need to hide the type of music that I like, the type of films that I watch, the places that I go. I feel I don’t need to hide that I’m a sensitive person, that I cry sometimes. I feel that I can make comments with my team that I make with my friends, that I had to hide at work previously. And I think I am getting closer to people in my team and in other teams.

I was able to be a very good performer before, but at a cost – anxiety, even moments of depression, many times. I think the main thing about being able to be open is in terms of mental health and happiness. I don’t talk often about my personal life because I’m still private. But I’m me. I don’t feel ashamed anymore whenever it’s appropriate to talk about those things. So, it’s fresh working at Nubank in this sense.

Setting the agenda

At Nubank, I think that the agenda is very genuine. The teams are growing diverse, and we have very ambitious goals to increase this diversity over time. I have worked in US companies, British companies and Brazilian companies before, but there has been nothing really like the diversity we have in Nubank. The dedication of the senior leadership and the amazing D&I professionals from different backgrounds are really inspiring.

We have been involved in many initiatives that aim to promote entrepreneurship from the black communities. There is an investment program called Semente Preta (‘Black Seed’) funding start-ups that are being created and led by black professionals. We have invested funds in many of those start-ups that we will continue to follow, give mentorship to and ensure they have the right opportunities to grow their new businesses.

Salvador is the capital of Bahia, one of the states in Brazil which has a large black community. It’s very important in the landscape of Brazil, so we have opened a lab there focusing on those communities to foster innovation, and we also have ‘Nubankers’ working from there.

Mobilising the legal community

As a legal team at Nubank, we are working with legal teams in other companies to join efforts to foster social and racial diversity in the legal community. Nubank has given us the platform to go out there and say: we need to unite ourselves for broader actions and initiatives in terms of racial justice and diversity in the legal community.

I think there’s a huge potential for the legal community to be more diverse, and because a legal team within a company is not the core business, our teams are not that large, we have fewer opportunities outside the context of the business.

But, internally, we can help with our knowledge to be sure that we have the right policies in place, we support other areas to ensure that whatever decision we make is not discriminatory in terms of clients, and that any language that we use in our marketing is also adequate. So I think we do have the knowledge to help with D&I initiatives. Every single initiative coming from both the D&I and the ESG teams is supported by us in legal, and we have to ensure that we comply with the laws and best practices. Especially when you start sponsoring projects, you have agreements, you have many legislations that you have to comply with. And Nubank is so dedicated to it that just in being part of this huge community, you are involved in D&I discussions every day.

There are many arguments for diversity and inclusion in corporations. From an HR perspective, you want to attract and retain the best staff. From a marketing standpoint, it’s more creative if you have people from different backgrounds – the proposals, the brand, the advertisements will be much more interesting. From a commercial standpoint, if you have a team that is diverse, clients will see themselves in you, so you create this relatability between clients and the people that form your company. From a legal perspective, you need to treat everyone equally; you need to have a very strong culture in terms of respect.

All of this makes sense. We have many reports available showing that diverse companies are more sustainable, long-term profits, results, etc. But, for me, it’s because it’s the right thing to do. If your goal is to see a society that is more equal, more just, fairer, why not start doing it with your own company? Because, doing that, I think you will inspire people who perhaps never thought about diversity, multiplying and inspiring others outside the company. If you want to have a company that leaves a legacy in society, and perhaps influences society, that has the same goals as you would like to see, that’s where you can do it.

The legal profession presents some challenges and opportunities for diversity and inclusion, since we have a special purpose: to attain justice and societal peace for the world. Maybe this is very idealistic, but in a world where conflict is commonplace, we need a lawyer profile. The corporate lawyer should be concerned about having a more diverse and inclusive organization, to understand their clients.

Capturing the zeitgeist

When I engaged in the private practice of law 20 years ago, nobody would talk about diversity and inclusion. We didn’t have maternity leave, we didn’t have a home office so you would have to stay very late in the law firm, and being a workaholic was the rule. 20 years later, things have changed. A new sense of societal demands for women and LGBTQIA+ communities has been captured within the legal profession, and now it is more concerned about diversity and inclusion in general, making the lawyers happier people, and we now have, for example, maternity leave for parents, and a soft landing after having your baby.

However, in 2016, there was a report issued by Women in the Profession (WIP) Peru, a group I am part of, about the proportion of partners in law firms by gender. I was very shocked with the results – we didn’t have parity in the partnerships of law firms; maybe 30% maximum were women.

Aside from the legal profession in law firms and in-house teams, we have academic panels, where until maybe 2017 or 2016, we had all male panels on academic legal topics. It’s something
that is changing – some companies and legal in-house teams have stated to set aspirational quotas of at least 30% women in panels.

Agents of change

I’m very engaged on diversity and inclusion topics – I really want to be, both as an individual and together with all the people around me with the same goals, to be an agent of change in society. I am a member of WIP, and Women CEO, a corporate organization that has a main goal of least 30% of women on boards by 2025. Unfortunately, even public companies that report to the market on their independent directors and so on have a great gap in terms women occupying the C-suite and leadership roles. I think the legal profession is a key profession for diversity, since they are legal and counsel to the whole company on these matters.

When it comes to my team, we are about 85% women. We get together every other day, and I try to have a special one-to-one meeting with each one at least once a month, about whatever makes them worry at the office or at their homes, just to hear their needs. I’m conscious that every person is different and sometimes they do not like to talk en masse. So, I have a very direct relationship with every member of my team.

In the pension fund industry, we participate as shareholders in meetings and committees for different investments that we are in. When we appoint directors, we try to make sure that at least one woman is included by the headhunters. When we look ourselves for directors to represent the pension funds through our in-house research, we like to always make sure that at least one woman is considered in the final group of three that is to be voted on.

I’m part of the inclusion committee at Scotia Bank. It’s one of the oldest diversity and inclusion committees in the financial sector in Peru and has been operating for more than ten years. It has a member that represents each of the different affiliates of Scotia Bank in Peru, and we try to hear the voice of every company, every member of the committee, and then try to issue similar standards and policies on gender and equality in the metrics, events, and workshops that we have.

In Scotia Bank, we have a culture of welcoming everyone. This is not limited to women, this is also extended to different ideologies, experiences, profiles, perspectives, and sexual options. And that diversity has proved to be one of our best assets because, during the pandemic, there was a lack of trust of the government, to the private sector, specifically the financial sector and pension funds, and so this has made us resilient with our clients, they will stick with the relationship because they feel comfortable, and that the corporation has empathy for them.

Pillars of inclusion

In the inclusion committee, we focus on three different pillars: gender equality, disability and the LGBT community. So these are the three pillars that support our different policies. Our strategy on diversity and inclusion fosters a culture of respect, of valuing all the differences and giving equal worth to equal talent. We recognize that we are all different biologically and physiologically, but, in terms of work and salary and opportunities, there should be no difference. That made us issue some policies on wage, salaries and to have equitable compensation packages.

In terms of the selection of staff, we try to do it very fairly in terms of diversity and inclusion. For example, when you apply for a job at Scotia Bank, you won’t have a chart to mark whether you are a woman or man, we only focus on what really matters – if you’re experienced, whether you have values that fit with ours. In our panels for the selection of staff, we have at least one woman and we have always a woman candidate or LGBT candidate as well in the selection (if they voluntarily mention what their sexual preference is).

We have inclusive communication – we have an inclusive language manual that helps us to address the different internal communications in a way that is open and diverse for everyone. We won’t say, ‘Hi there, women’, or ‘Hi there, men’, we would say, ‘Hi there, team’ – very slight words that we use to avoid discrimination and making people uncomfortable.

Check the X-ray

We also track the different initiatives that we have, because whatever you have on paper, you have to measure to make sure it is working. So we have an X-ray report on the different metrics that we use: for example, the number of women versus men that are scaling the corporate ladder, the number of women that have access to promotions. We conduct annual research where we ask people to tell us if they want to become an ally, or how they feel about the fact that Scotia Bank is focused on the LGBT community, if they really want to support the LGBT community. So we have a database of people who will really help us in closed groups to foster the initiatives targeting the LGBT community. Year by year, the percentage of people supportive of the LGBT community is increasing more than 20%.

We have a mandatory quota on disabled people. You can always accuse yourself, saying ‘Notwithstanding the fact that I have looked for disabled people to fit this job description, I haven’t found anyone.’ But we try to do our best, and include people with different types of disability, for example, auditory, visually or physically disabled people. That’s something we are very proud of. We’re still working on accessibility. I don’t think there are a lot of companies here in Peru that have special products for disabled people. But, for example, in Scotia Bank we have an app that reads the different functionalities aloud in Spanish, so you don’t have to actually read the app to make a transaction with the bank.

We have different programs to empower women, to break the glass ceiling, such as leadership skills, networking, and different models that you can engage in. They’re all virtual.

Those are some of the things that we’re working on, across the large spectrum of work we have done for diversity and inclusion.

My experience breaking barriers throughout my career has led me to be very conscious about the culture that we are building within the Latin America Practice Group at Willkie. A part of this is leading with empathy and compassion. I understand some of the unique challenges that face a diverse group of individuals, and aim to build an environment where we are all open about these hurdles and work together to help one another. I believe that the culture we have created is great for our team to thrive and helps us to provide clients with the best work possible.

Another way that this has shaped the group’s culture is that we are constantly looking for ways to lift up others and give them the opportunity and support to try out new things and be in the spotlight, especially when it comes to women, people of color and other diverse groups. I see it as my job to encourage those coming up behind me to take chances and be seen. This leads to greater professional fulfillment and inspires others beyond our firm to hopefully do the same amongst their teams.

I think that important actions can be taken at every level of the talent pipeline to help support the next generation of leaders to thrive throughout their careers. These can be grouped into retention and recruitment.

On retention: Developing a mechanism to receive feedback on how the culture supports women and other underrepresented groups is critical. This feedback can provide incredible insights and build trust. However, I would caution that this can’t be performative, and there need to be deliberate efforts to make changes based on the feedback. Another way is to build in and celebrate the mentorship efforts within the organization. If you can celebrate those who take the time to mentor and champion women, I genuinely believe this will lead to progress.

In recruitment: I think that having a robust and inclusive culture is an essential first step to continue attracting diverse talent. As a leader, I view it as my responsibility to be a vocal advocate for inclusion and find ways to support its benefits publicly. Today, with the battle for talent being at its most competitive, we need to ensure that we are out there on the public record making our contributions.

In the Latin American context, we are seeing a significant influx of women in leadership. I look throughout the region and see so many talented organizations doing great work to combat the bias that has limited our potential as a global business community for so long. I feel hopeful that this will continue and that other regions will look to Latin America for best practices on gender parity in the future.

The first piece of advice I would give is that you shouldn’t be afraid to chart your own path. For many of us, our paths will look different than those who came before us because we are different than traditional leaders of the past. This means that this path might feel lonely and awkward at times, which is okay.

Also, it’s critical to get comfortable calling out bias wherever you see it. I would always try to ensure that you are doing it with respect, but it’s important to exercise that muscle.

Unfortunately, as women and individuals of color, we will face bias. The more experience we have engaging in these courageous conversations, the better equipped we will be for the future. I also believe that you shouldn’t feel like you have to address this alone. All organizations are grappling with building inclusive cultures. Take the time to share your concerns with senior leaders that you trust because we are here to support you, but we can’t help address problems unless we are aware of them.

Another key area where I work with my mentees is getting comfortable being authentic at work, while acknowledging it can take courage. For some, this could look like developing a personal style and sharing cultural norms that celebrate who we are. It can also mean sharing information about what is going on in our lives even if it feels vulnerable. The reason that it’s so critical is that research shows that those who develop deep connections at work are more productive and feel more fulfilled. One comprehensive study showed that the number one predictor of a successful team is the psychological safety of that team, or in other words a team’s ability to feel safe to take risks and to be vulnerable in front of each other. I don’t think we can develop these deep relationships if we are hiding our true selves.

Lastly, I would also share the importance of making time for the things that bring you joy. Joy is the antidote to burnout, and it keeps us creative and connected. I think that we often feel that to be successful, as long as we put in the long hours, we will reach the top. That has not been my experience. It is also essential to maintain a multidimensional life that can fuel us for the marathon that is our careers. Building a habit of prioritizing joy is a key life lesson, especially in a business that relies heavily on interpersonal relationships among your team and client base. We are in the people business, after all.

Three years ago, I was discussing how the insurance sector was behind in terms of D&I with three company lawyers who were senior managers in legal departments (Ana Paula de Almeida Santos and Vera Carvalho Pinto). We decided to create Idis, an institute to improve that, so we gathered some volunteers, and we work on awareness, we do events and training and we help companies to implement their D&I programs.

Nowadays, we work across five pillars: gender, focusing on women; LGBTQIA+; race and ethnicity; generations, focusing on people above 50; and people with disabilities. All the leaders have experience in that area of diversity.

But I want to create a pillar about other areas of diversity, as well. We work a lot on the traditional pillars for D&I because we still have a lot to do. But there are many other biases that people have, and we need to at least make them aware that this can prevent some people truly contributing to the company. For example, I talk a lot nowadays about ‘fat phobia’, because some companies don’t hire overweight people. They think they are slow, or they are lazy. But actually, when we do very intellectual work, such as in financial markets, we are not running a marathon!

Finding your cause

We now have 35 volunteers, and the companies sponsor us. It has been quite a journey – very rewarding. I believe in voluntary work because it’s important to dedicate yourself to something bigger. It’s not about forcing anyone to engage in any voluntary work – I always say, for example, if the company had a program of “let’s do exercise, let’s go biking”, I would not engage in that because it’s not my cup of tea, it’s not what sparkles for me. What makes me willing to engage is D&I or social responsibility or environmental issues. This sparkles for me. If the company offers employees some possibilities for voluntary work, this creates more loyalty to the company, because even if I receive an offer from another company, I will not go because I will lose that part of my life that is important to me.

For my personal development it has also been great because I am learning to lead by influence, not by power. My team knows (even though I don’t tell them) that I will evaluate them and I can dismiss them. But when you lead an organization of volunteers, it’s all about influencing, recognition and supporting. For me personally it has been quite a journey. All of them are very much engaged and I’m proud of this thing – it’s probably the best thing I ever had in my life.

We all went to law school searching for Justice with a capital J, and D&I for me is a matter of Justice more than anything, and of respect. I think legal departments have a key role in diversity and inclusion, because we search for Justice.

Influence in action

Secondly, we are consulted about everything, including internal policies. When you are looking at a hiring policy for example, you can influence to have more rules about D&I. I’ll give you an example. If you are hiring a new lawyer, you can ask for résumés of both genders. I’m not saying that you must hire a woman, but at least you have to interview a woman. And you can try to have blind interviews, not knowing if it’s a woman or a man. When interviewing someone, I try to not open the camera – I say let’s talk by phone, because then I will not look at the person. If the person is good-looking or not good-looking, if they are black or white, I will not see.

Everybody has biases. Everybody. So, first of all, we need to be aware of our biases, and secondly, we need to try to avoid our biases. I was talking with a general counsel before the pandemic and there was a very important congress in that country, where it was a form of recognition to send someone to participate in the congress. I said to him, “What about this lady?” And he said to me, “Oh no, she has a baby, I think she won’t go, even if I give her this recognition.” And I said, “Did you ask her?” “No, I didn’t.” “So you ask her. Because whether she will go and leave the baby at home, or go and take the baby with her, it’s her decision, not yours. So if she deserves to receive this recognition, the mere fact that she has a baby is not something you need to take into account.”

We need to be vigilant. This is the point. If you are in a meeting and someone cracks a joke or makes a comment that’s offensive to any person – even if there is no one of that group there in the meeting – you need to point it out. You need to educate people. This is something that has changed over time and, I must tell you, for me it has been a journey as well. Many years ago, I would not be concerned about that. But now, I am a different person.

What corporate lawyers, more than anyone, need to be conscious of, is that we are not there to be popular. We are not there to be friends of everybody. We are there to be the annoying person that tells the truth. We need to point it out when someone is wrong, when they are going down a path that’s not the correct one. It’s our mission, including about D&I. It’s not only about law, it’s about ethics – and D&I is part of ethics.

Closing the gap

In Brazil we have economic inequality which is very much connected to ethnicity. Brazil was the last country in Latin America to abolish slavery and even nowadays, in Brazil, to be Black is almost to be poor. So, when you have a proactive action to have more Black people in your company, you need to close the gap. You don’t demand a first-league university, you don’t demand English is used, you don’t demand the full package in terms of knowledge. You need to hire people and close the gap.

It’s the same for people with disabilities. In Brazil, there is a law requiring companies to have a percentage of their employees with disabilities, and the spirit of the law is that the companies help to close the gap of those people – sometimes, perhaps, they could not go to a particular school for example. So, the company will hire them and give training to them. But, often, the companies are not so eager to do that. But big companies have a responsibility, and legal departments have to influence in this direction.

If I can work 10 years more in diversity and inclusion, I will work. I believe this will be my legacy. More than making money and have wealth, I need to leave something behind. I will be happy when 56% of all people in companies in Brazil, including senior management, are Black people. I will be happy when 50% of the senior management of companies are women. And I will be very happy when an LGBT person does not have to hide their sexual orientation, because then we will have a truly respectful environment. I will be happy if a person above 60 is still valued as a good asset to the company, who can contribute with their experience. I will be happy if companies truly develop people with disabilities. 15 years ago, I was at another company, and I had a deaf person in my team. But I was not prepared, I was not trained to deal with that person. I was not taught sign language, nothing. I didn’t know how to manage that person. I believe that companies have to train managers how to deal with people with disabilities.

Paying gratitude forward

So, we have a long way to go. I know during my lifetime this won’t change. But I have the dream of developing at least my sector, the insurance sector, a little bit. Nobody in university has ever said, ‘I will work for an insurance company!’ But insurance is very challenging, you get to know qualified people, it’s a good work environment, and I would like to make the insurance sector more attractive to young people. So they look at the insurance sector and say, ‘Look how many good things they are doing in terms of D&I, the environment, wellbeing, and other initiatives. I would like to work for the insurance sector.’ I am very grateful to the insurance sector. I have had many opportunities in it, and I want to leave something good behind to the sector.

This year marks the 20-year anniversary of HRC’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a national benchmarking tool for corporate LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the US. But Latin American countries are fast catching up with their neighbour in the drive for recognition of inclusive professional environments for LGBTQIA+ employees and, in 2016, a Mexican version was launched.

Run by LGBTQIA+ inclusion consultancy ADIL, the HRC Equidad MX: Global Workplace Equality Program promotes LGBTQIA+ equality and inclusion in the Mexican corporate landscape through an annual workplace survey, like its US counterpart. Each year, participating businesses in Mexico offer up their policies and practices for scrutiny, hoping for recognition on a list of ‘Mejores Lugares Para Trabajar LGBTQIA+’ or ‘Best Places to Work for LGBTQIA+ Equality’.

Mexico has a suite of laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people in areas such as marriage, adoption and more, although these are often state-based and coverage across the country is incomplete. The Out Leadership Business Climate Score gives the country a rating of 7.5 out of 10, marking it ‘low risk’ in three out of four risk categories. However, according to that same index, ‘Pervasive anti-LGBTQIA+ violence and homophobia in Mexico and the patchwork landscape of legislation may create challenges for companies seeking to relocate LGBTQIA+ personnel to Mexico.’

Francisco Robledo Sánchez is a Mexican consultant and strategist in LGBTQIA+ labor inclusion, and founder of ADIL. He explains that culture, practices and the law do not always match, and that it remains important to campaign on LGBTQIA+ rights in the Mexican corporate space.

‘Mexico is a very conservative and Catholic country, where a lot of companies are family companies that have grown into large corporations, or companies that come from different countries with offices here, that don’t have D&I on their radar at all,’ he says.

‘Mexico, is very, very behind on sexual education and diversity and inclusiveness – basic information that’s not taught anywhere in our curriculum and at any stage of public or private education. So, the corporate world has been a great place for re-educating adults in the workplace, so they can positively impact their families and their social circles.’

But the tide is turning, according to Robledo: ‘The interest is genuine, the social pressure is big, there are a lot of ingredients in this conversation, and I can see that people are more comfortable to talk.’

Capitalising on that increased appetite for conversation about LGBTQIA+ inclusion, Equidad MX is on a mission to build workplaces where anyone can be themselves at work, and to celebrate where companies are doing this well.

Eight years ago, Robledo first met with Deena Fidas, director of HRC’s US Workplace Equality Program at that time (the current US director is Keisha Williams, a lawyer, law professor and former in-house counsel). Fidas wanted to help US-headquartered companies expand LGBTQIA+ inclusion in their Mexican operations to provide the same experience for staff working internationally, while also supporting Mexican companies to comply with the supply chain DE&I requirements of US entities. ADIL was selected to run the program, which launched in 2016 and released its first report in 2018.

By 2016, the CEI had been running for 14 years, making it an excellent template for Equidad MX.

‘We reviewed it question by question, and we asked ourselves: “what is a good fit for Mexico right now to ask for as minimum requirements?” We had a couple of roundtables discussing what we should be asking locally. We thought that, for the first five years, we should ask for the very basics,’ Robledo explains.

The team settled on three criteria, or core pillars, of LGBTQIA+ inclusion, which companies seeking to appear in the Equidad MX list need to demonstrate. The first of these is adoption of non-discrimination policies, necessitating a written commitment to encourage eventual standardisation among companies – and nuance is a must. For example, the Mexican constitution bans discrimination due to ‘sexual preferences’, Robledo explains.

‘We knew that companies would only put what the constitution says. But more involved companies would actually know that we should abide by these three big dimensions of sexual diversity and gender and diversity. So first, it was: “let’s ask them to put these terms in writing, particularly sexual orientation and gender identity, and then gender expression as an option for more involved companies.” That’s a basic commitment and we can grow from there,’ Robledo explains.

The second pillar for candidate companies is the creation of employee resource groups (ERGs) or diversity and inclusion councils. In another example of Equidad MX’s desire to systematize LGBTQIA+ inclusion policies, the idea was to see companies build on and solidify the work done thus far by champions.

‘We found that very, very, very few companies have a diversity and inclusion area or a full-time person responsible for these matters. Some would have a diversity council. So, this part was more of a challenge because we were requesting companies to formalise their commitment by founding a council or building an ERG, or the basis of an affinity group. Because we had a lot of champions. So this was a way of saying, “ok, we have it in writing, now which group of people are going to make it real, are going to transform it into programs and procedures?” – we have to visualize that group of people,’ says Robledo.

The third pillar is engagement in public activities to support LGBTQIA+ inclusion, which means that companies must evidence at least three public activities – and these must take place throughout the year, not only during Pride.

The thread running through the criteria, and the ethos behind Equidad MX, is not just to reward the corporate ecosystem as it relates to workplace LGBTQIA+ equality and inclusion, but to move it forward. The pillars, Robledo explains, are designed to meet companies where they are now – but also to challenge them to move on.

‘It’s just a basis. One of the other missions is to empower companies to tell us where to grow, how to grow, and what’s needed locally, so we can set that as a standard and make this grow together.’

But in moving the conversation around inclusion forward, Robledo has, at times, found the legal profession to be less helpful than he believes it could be. He explains that although there is a federal law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation, it was Mexico City as a state that broke this down into sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual expression and sexual preferences, addressing the specifics of discrimination around characteristics like speech and dress for the first time. But while the federal constitution refers only to ‘sexual preferences’, many companies comply only to that degree.

‘Still today we find a lot of lawyers that still don’t want to make that change, because they say that if the law says “sexual preferences”, then that’s it. And then we say that if we don’t break it down in these terms then the company is not actually being that advanced or that forward. It takes a lot of lobbying for us to make them see how they should keep up with what society and what international laws are saying and not just local laws. It’s a tough group. Sometimes we just have to pull out the Mexico City Constitution (if they are based in Mexico City) and tell them: you’re not abiding by this law and just ignoring it and going to the other law which is incomplete,’ he explains.

‘We have to break down these terms so they can use them in a procedure of a lower scale within the company or just with internal communication. So, they may have still have just “sexual preferences” but then people in the D&I area or champions will find a way to put it in writing in a document of different rank within the company.’

Robledo argues that despite protection under legislation in Mexico, LGBTQIA+ people wishing to bring workplace discrimination claims often find themselves unprotected.

‘The federal law and the local Mexican law don’t have teeth. There’s lots that ends up only becoming recommendations,’ he says.

And, he adds, the lengthy, demanding and resource-intensive nature of the process for pursuing a claim is a disincentive for bringing proceedings in the first place.

‘People are not suing for discrimination in Mexico, so then many lawyers are very comfortable in their positions – “It’s not an issue because we are not losing money, on the reputational side there’s only very few companies that have been exposed to discrimination issues”, and so it’s not a priority for them. The global sense is: “Ok, prove to me you were discriminated against”. But the laws that we have are not that strong, so it can actually be a nicer process for me if I receive the discrimination.’

As long as the laws remain relatively toothless, Robledo believes, addressing workplace discrimination against LGBTQIA+ groups will not be a priority for in-house teams, and policies addressing the issue will remain recommendations. However, engagement among the legal profession is looking up: despite the 2021 Index featuring no law firms at all, the newly released 2022 report includes five.

Speaking with his consultant hat on, Robledo has found that, in many cases, the motivation behind improving LGBTQIA+ inclusion can be an obstacle towards achieving it.

‘We have a few very large Mexican companies that have started to do the D&I work because they have international pressure from customers and clients in other countries, but not coming from a genuine interest. As a consultant, when I ask them why they want to start doing this, almost 80% come from a business perspective: my customers, the stock market in the US is asking us for some sort of documentation, some business or money-based perspective on why they want to do it,’ he says.

Across the global corporate community, the business case for DE&I is often a major argument made for increasing workplace inclusion. But Robledo contends that can be a weak basis, leading to an underestimation of how long it can take to achieve, for example, Equidad MX certification.

There are two types of companies, he says – those with an intrinsic commitment, and those whose commitment is driven by marketing opportunities. But, buoyed by the power of social media, the public is demanding to know what commitments lie behind the Pride flag. The Index itself, says Robledo, can perhaps help such companies develop a more authentic commitment, by serving as a toolkit as well as a commendation:

‘Pride was their only option to show that they were committed, but on the marketing side. Those marketing perspective companies actually now have a reason. Six years ago, we started working with them to get them to this point.’

Since its inception, Equidad MX has seen year-on-year growth. In 2018, 32 companies received the accolade. In 2019, the list had grown to 69, 120 in 2020, 212 in 2021, and the most recent 2022 edition saw 242 companies listed, out of 262 survey applications made. Robledo is pleased, despite having had a goal of 300 applications for the 2022 edition, which may have been stymied by the pandemic. But growth may be slowing, he fears.

‘It’s coming to a maturity point where we’re not growing that much anymore. We now have 262 [applicant] companies and maybe 60% of them were doing it well in another country and they just had to put it in place in Mexico. Maybe another 15% were forced by their global business partners, global customers or clients that were pressuring for them to grow LGBTQIA+ inclusion. And the last group really just want to do the right thing by working on it – maybe they started three or four years ago and finally now in our fifth year they are ready to jump into the report,’ he says.

‘For the rest of the companies, their starting point is lower than 80% of the companies we found five years ago. So the group is going to slow down in the next three, four or five years.’

The focus for the report now is to strengthen the tools that the team is trying to develop, moving the conversation on in Mexico, and lobbying to have impact beyond the corporate sphere and linking the results with legislative and policy changes. The next report will evolve the list of criteria to look at how LGBTQIA+ people are included in employee benefits, as well as training offered by organizations. In addition, the team is looking to branch out beyond Mexico City, where many participating companies are based.

The HRC continues to broaden its reach across Latin America, having launched a similar initiative in Chile two years ago and, recently, in Brazil and Argentina. The team is also looking at Colombia and Costa Rica, where there has been interest.

‘I’ve been looking for partners in each country so they can implement and be the local focal point,’ says Robledo.

‘Maybe down the road we will have a LatAm version of the survey, where we can talk about some general requirements and some local requirements as well.’

Because I am a woman, it’s very important to me that, in an organization, women have equal treatment and equal opportunities to anyone else. Diversity and inclusion means being recognized for my talent, ability, my individual characteristics and it’s important that, based on those, I can compete and develop with equal opportunity.

The importance of inclusion

But having a diverse team in an organization is not enough to get all the benefits that diversity brings. There must be an inclusive and open environment that guarantees this equal treatment and opportunity. I heard in a training session that diversity is when they invite you to the party, but inclusion is when they invite you to dance. If you don’t work on inclusion, you won’t have the environment that you need to develop your career as a woman or as a minority. You need a safe place where you can express your ideas, your different viewpoint. In my experience at different companies, women can help to develop the business because we have different perspectives than men.

For many years, I have participated in D&I initiatives, for example leading D&I committees, developing minority support programs, developing diversity management models, and participating in mentoring and sponsorship programs.

Work-life balance

I love mentoring, especially when the mentee is a woman starting out in her working life, because you can share your experience, and help other women to open up the workplace and develop their professional career; give some advice about how to balance personal life and work. I’m married, I have children and for me this part is very important, because I need to have a very good personal life in order to give a very good work performance. I need this balance in my life. Through mentoring, I can give young women tips or advice to help to balance personal life and work and about the importance of co-responsibility in caring for children.

That’s a big challenge because, traditionally in Chile, men work and women stay at home. It’s part of our culture. Unfortunately, the pandemic has impacted women more than men in terms of employment, and also due to the increase in childcare. Co-responsibility is a new concept for us and we need to work on that, to involve more men in work at home.

Only 14% of board members of IPSA companies (the top 30 companies with the largest stock market presence in Chile) are women. However, there has been an advance because, ten years ago, this precedent was close to 4%. In the legal field, things are not very different. Although today there are more women lawyers working at law firms, at the partner or general counsel level, there are very few. We are proud that SMU is one of the two IPSA companies in the country led by women. Our chair and vice president of the board are women, and we have three female board members.

Culture

In our company, D&I is a priority. It’s included in the company strategy plan, it’s one of our pillars, and the company has a management model based on our code of ethics. We have a cultural code called ‘CERCA’, which means Closeness, Excellence, Respect, Collaboration and Agility. Our culture is very important, because it tells us how we do business, and through actions and activity in the company, we seek to influence employees, their family, our clients, suppliers and the community. We have different programs in the company to support different groups, for example women and people with disabilities.

The legal team

The legal team promotes and lives the values of the company in terms of diversity and inclusion. I think we are an example for other teams. 59% of the legal team and 67% of the legal top management are women. My team has actively supported the creation of policies, procedures, and action plans related to D&I, protection of human rights and sustainability for the whole company. We have supported this process with the people team and have prepared training in these kinds of matters. The company has many activities, and my team supports all of them in their creation and organization, not only as participants.

The team has participated in a sustainability volunteers’ program. We have promoted female talent by giving them visibility, for example three women from our team represent the company in trade associations.

During 2020 and 2021, the team participated in a development program implemented for the first time in the company, which includes mentoring and sponsorship activity. We had the opportunity to put forward two women and one man as mentees, and I mentored two women.

I think as an in-house legal team we can contribute a lot. For example, we have experience of working with diverse teams from other areas, we have colleagues not only of different genders or groups, but also from different professions. This allows better collaborative work and knowledge exchange, and we share all that experience and good practice with everyone and, of course, with our external lawyers. I think we can help our outside counsel to promote these matters.

We are a client of many law firms and we contribute by giving visibility to talented women lawyers and in hiring law firms led by women. For example, in the last year we hired a law firm led by female partners for an important company matter, and we had an excellent result and developed an excellent relationship with them.

It’s very important for me, for my team, and for the company, that those who work for us share our special culture. When we hire a new law firm, as a woman, I always like to know how many female partners or minority group members the law firm has, and I share with them the importance of having women in the team.

In my opinion, in-house life is more diverse than private practice, because we are part of the company and we have relationships with other areas, other professions. SMU has many initiatives related to flexible work, different schedules to help everyone, not only women, and different thinking in everyone to try to have the same diversity in the company as in the society. My company is a retail company, we serve clients in society, and we need to have more diversity in our teams to better serve our clients.

In Bolivia, unequal access to justice undermines the possibility of equality in society. As a university student, I volunteered with a human rights organization that worked in a women’s prison here in Bolivia. Most of the women that I worked with were survivors of gender violence, and it quickly became clear that many women were in jail simply because they did not have the money to afford a lawyer, not because they were likely responsible for a crime. Most of these women did not know their rights, so we worked with them to explain their human rights, help them with their legal cases, and share information on what their futures might look like.

It was obvious to me that the system had failed these women and that they needed a way to escape the vicious cycle of poverty and violence. For me, the answer was simple: help women support their families and themselves so that they could leave violence behind and start a new life.

This chapter of my life defined me. I knew that I wanted to continue to fight for women’s rights and women’s empowerment. At Pro Mujer, we spend every day working to make these objectives a reality.

Closing gender gaps

The gender gaps in the financial sector are alarming. Globally, only 6% of investment capital goes to companies led by women, and 70% of women do not have access to capital to start a business. In Latin America, women’s access to funding is even bleaker. Covid-19 has further exacerbated the situation – the progress made over the last 10 years in terms of achieving equality in the labor market has been erased, and rates of gender-based violence have exploded. In Bolivia, the figures are sobering: every day, a woman is killed by gender violence, and only one in three cases is ever reported.

Gender equality contributes to poverty reduction and boosts the economy. According to McKinsey, closing the gender gap would result in an automatic increase in global GDP of 11%, and GDP in Latin America would increase by 14% if women were encouraged to participate in the economy and received the support they need to do so.

Data show that if you give a woman access to loans, they tend to use the money to support their family and be more productive than men. In 2021 alone, Pro Mujer disbursed US$269 million in loans to women who were unable to access traditional financial services. Pro Mujer uses a holistic approach to positively impact women’s lives. We go beyond just financial inclusion and access to microfinance loans, offering access to health services, digital inclusion initiatives, and skill-building opportunities.

In 2021, we provided 400,000 health services, including 3,000 free mammograms in Mexico, preventive health services for breast cancer and cervical cancer, access to a chatbot for diabetes prevention, and access to contraceptives.

Pro Mujer’s community health workers also play a critical role in our health and well-being initiatives, as they are able to reach women in rural areas where hospitals and doctors are scarce. Each community health worker is trained to detect risk factors in their communities and refer women to a health clinic, if necessary.

Over the past few years, Pro Mujer has also ramped up its focus on digital inclusion. Today, 67% of women have access to the internet. We strongly believe that digital tools will allow us to offer more financing and training opportunities to more women.

In addition, we are working together with US Vice President Kamala Harris as a member of the Partnership for Central America and have committed to increasing our impact in the Northern Triangle, reaching more than three million people with our services. To meet this commitment, we will be opening an office in Guatemala.

Gender lens investing

Pro Mujer is committed to strengthening the gender lens investing ecosystem in Latin America by creating investment strategies, sharing best practices with investors that want to create impactful social change, and offering technical assistance to private companies to help them get gender smart.

In 2019, Pro Mujer partnered with Deetken Impact to launch the Ilu Women’s Empowerment Fund. The Fund invests in a diversified portfolio of high-impact businesses that support women in leadership and governance, offer products and services that meet the needs of women and girls, develop gender-sensitive value chains, and support workplace equity.

In 2021, the Ilu Women’s Empowerment Fund was awarded funding from USAID to develop the ILU Women’s Empowerment Program. This program seeks to increase gender equality in Latin America and the Caribbean through three main components: incremental capital, technical assistance and knowledge sharing, and advocacy.

Within the framework of this program, we launched the Ilu Toolbox, an open-source platform featuring more than 30 resources to help companies address gender gaps and implement strategies to attract gender lens investing.

Identifying the appropriate legal mechanisms

In the past, the role of general counsel was more to put out fires. These days, the general counsel is a key business partner that should be involved in an organization’s business decisions from the very beginning of its operations. Pro Mujer is always working to expand its impact footprint and empower more women. Our role as a legal team is to identify the appropriate legal mechanisms so that Pro Mujer can expand its footprint through alliances and support more women. Latin America is very politically volatile, and we must navigate a lot of legal challenges in order to continue our work.

At Pro Mujer, the legal team must go beyond the role of legal advisor to make sure that the organization is able to continue to impact and empower women. The most rewarding part of the job is going out into the field and hearing the success stories. Knowing that we have had an impact on the lives of our employees and clients is truly gratifying. We have supported women who are survivors of gender-based violence and have empowered them to start a new life. One specific success story that has stayed with me is that of a woman who has been a part of Pro Mujer for more than two decades. Twenty-four years ago, she started to sell boots in the streets of El Alto; now she owns a factory.

The role of in-house lawyers is different today than it was 20, 30 years ago. Now we are the dealmakers of the organization, and we must become thought leaders for our organizations – we are not in the back office anymore.

Not just any policies: The right policies

As members of the legal profession, we must think about the impact we can have and the critical importance of supporting women. In Latin America, many women do not have access to the courts or to fair laws, and the region is very behind in everything to do with dealing with gender-based violence. There is a lot of space to improve the laws, but it is also necessary to ensure equal access to the court system – because you can have perfect laws, but if women cannot access the justice system, those laws are useless. I think there are a lot of opportunities for lawyers to be proactive, to make our voices heard, and to identify how we can help improve women’s lives.

Something that concerns me is the fact that a lot of people do not speak about sexual harassment. When I started my career, many years back, it was something that you had to live with. I sadly have personal stories about sexual harassment; as a woman, it was just something you were expected to deal with when you navigated in a men’s corporate world. Today, times have changed, and although sexual harassment is no longer acceptable, there is still a long way to go.

As members of the legal team, we are involved in creating company policies, and these policies must include gender inclusion and diversity. I strongly believe that gender inclusion must be mandatory in every company’s internal policy—gender inclusion should not be optional. It is our role as inside counsel to make sure that the policies not only exist, but also that the right policies are in place and are effective.

Having a diverse team brings different points of view to the table where a specific solution or point is raised because of the unique perspective of an individual based on their life experience and identity. I have been in situations where someone raised a point that was within my blind spot, and without which the group would not have reached its ultimate decision. I also believe that diverse teams have the ability to be more creative and innovative in their way of thinking leading to better decision making overall.

A diverse team also tends to share more and therefore tends to be more involved and more engaged. Better engagement results in teams with strong talent retention. Beyond being good for performance, it also results in a better work environment, better culture, happier employees and gives you more access to a better talent pool – it’s a good cycle to be in.

Another key aspect to the importance of diversity is when it comes to leadership positions. When younger diverse talent sees people who reflect their own diversity in leadership, they see people that they can identify with and feel more represented and willing to stay for longer in an organization. For example, if you are a woman and see other women in leadership positions, I think there is a sense that you can trust that your own perspectives will be better represented because similar life experiences create an empathy.

Beyond gender, I think the importance of representation goes for all traditionally underrepresented groups. If you have people in leadership positions with different identities, backgrounds, etc., it creates a greater sense of trust that anyone that works hard can succeed, regardless of their background. In addition, this trust become cyclical because once you succeed you want to stay and help lift up those who are coming up behind you. All of this creates a better environment, group of talent and overall performance, as studies have shown.

When it comes to how we serve our clients, having diverse teams is also incredibly important because studies show that diverse teams consistently outperform teams that lack diversity. It is also critical that we are able to demonstrate value alignment with our clients when it comes to fostering an inclusive culture. Many clients are demonstrating that diversity is a top priority. Therefore, law firms that in the best case scenario are seen as extensions of that in-house team, must be able to further reinforce that.

To me, diversity and inclusion means the possibility for anyone to have the opportunity to participate, or to make an improvement in, their career on an equal basis with anyone else.

I belong to a percentage of the population that could do that – I am at director level after a long career of 25 years – but the conditions that we had to accept at the start of our careers are quite different to those we are trying to achieve nowadays. For example, if I had to go to an interview 20 years ago, I was compelled to wear a skirt: I remember that in my first interview as a junior associate. And nowadays, when I hire someone, I don’t care if that person has put on their résumé that they’re a man, or a woman or whatever.

Follow the rules

I think that certain practices regarding diversity have to be implemented with rules so that change can work. While we’re still talking about the idea, nothing will change. And I think that for my team to comply with this goal, and with my beliefs, I need to directly set some rules considering diversity.

Last year, Argentina passed legislation compelling public sector companies to give 1% of positions to transgender people. If you’re a private company and you achieve that 1%, you have certain tax benefits.

But last year, the Public Registry of the City of Buenos Aires (PR) tried to compel organizations to give at least 50% of board seats to women, but that regulation was attacked by certain private associations and the resolution was struck down.

There is certain view held within the corporate landscape that says, ‘ok, we can have a good corporate governance program, and let me do my job, let me decide who I want and when I want certain changes to my board or management level or key officers – but do not impose that through a law. I don’t want to reject a man just because a law says I have to comply with giving 50% of seats to women’. That’s the discussion that has been set for bills regarding quotas today in Argentina, and we are expecting to see what can be done.

In summary, we are not in the top countries for prioritizing diversity in Latin America. We are trying to improve this, but the private sector is not convinced.

Using that seat at the table

I’m a member of the Argentine Chapter of Women Corporate Directors (WCD). This is an international association, with chapters around the world, where women that have certain board seats in listed companies, have meetings and offer job opportunities to other women at any point of the corporate ladder. For instance, if a company in England needs someone bilingual who has expertise in the energy sector, WCD shares information around the world, and the search starts between us to find résumés.

In addition to that, since I am a member of the board of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, and a trustee of Caja de Valores S.A., I participate in certain meetings with the government and try to participate in the development of legislation concerning all of this stuff.

I arrived at Edenor in July 2021, so I have only been here for six months, and one of my goals was to work on our new corporate governance code, including specifically a chapter on diversity. Likewise, we are working on a sustainable bond to be launched probably in 2022, and one of the measures of the sustainable bond will be diversity.

Previously, Edenor didn’t have any key officers as women, and now, out of ten at the table, there are three women. Any vacant role at the company has to be opened with at least three candidates and at least one should be a woman.

The most difficult part of this is with engineers. We have an industry where it is so difficult to find electrical engineers, and it’s even more difficult to find electrical engineers who are women. So we are working with certain universities to provide seminars, trying to seek women that could be interested in exploring the energy sector. We have a program that we call ‘Women in Edenor’, and in that program we try to focus on including more women in the company at the different levels we seek. My team is comprised of 100 people and 65% are women. For any new lawyer or student that would like to work with us, I follow the three résumé rules, and that one of these should be a woman.

I think that in-house lawyers can play a significant role in driving diversity and inclusion, because when you work at a listed company, you have a lot of opportunities, through complying, for example, with the rules of the SEC, or the London Stock Exchange, which helps you to have a significant role in diversity decisions throughout the company.

‘The number of women lawyers continues to increase. Now, almost half of all the students in law schools in Mexico are women. But there are no women in the high positions,’ says Tere Paillés, partner at SMPS Legal.

It’s a sentiment echoed throughout this report: in Lati America, it remains that case that women are underrepresented among the top echelons of the legal profession – in both branches.
It mirrors a wider corporate environment in which the female share of board seats in the largest publicly listed companies falls far below the male share. Of the OECD Latin American countries listed (plus Brazil), Mexican women had the smallest share of board seats at 9%, while Brazilian women had the highest at 13.7%, with Chile and Colombia at 9.9% and 12.5% respectively – well below the OECD average of 26.7% (itself hardly an indicator of parity).

‘It is important to emphasise that, today, Brazilian women have a higher level of education than men, with more access to universities, but this is not reflected in their careers within organizations. Those who are in the labor market earn up to 34% less than men in the same position, and are still a minority in leadership positions,’ says Leila Melo, general counsel at Itaú Unibanco in Brazil.

‘I see that the legal and corporate universes have a lot in common regarding the challenges for gender equality,’ she says.

The women interviewed in this report reel off the causes of gender inequality in the legal and corporate workplace – unequal distribution of domestic tasks, a culture of ‘machismo’, unconscious bias. Even harassment was cited as a feature of the professional workplace, at times.

But some Latin American women decided to make their own luck: to forge opportunities, bolster their networks, and empower themselves into a force to be reckoned with – top lawyers but also agents of change.

Like Jurídico de Saias, or ‘Lawyers in Skirts’, a group of female Brazilian in-house counsel formed in 2009. Originally part of an in-house counsel committee of the American Chamber of Commerce for Brazil (Amcham), the group evolved into an assembly for the exchange of ideas and experiences under the initial leadership of Josie Jardim, now assistant general counsel of Amazon in Brazil.

Erica Barbagalo, head of law, patent and compliance Brazil and LatAm BP for Crop Science at Bayer, was one of the founding members.

‘We realized at the time that the majority of companies’ legal leadership – general counsels – are male and there are few women,’ she says. ‘We found that the leadership of legal in-house was so alone, because we are just lawyers at the company. You don’t have peers to exchange ideas within the company when it comes to legal aspects.’

Over time, the group came to focus on the professional development of female corporate counsel and the creation of female leaders in law. For the more than 3,000 women who subscribe to the Jurídico de Saias app, that means access to information-sharing, job opportunities, mentoring programs, training and events. One such event is ‘De Saias Para Saias’ (‘From Skirts To Skirts’), a monthly live session on Instagram lead by senior speakers. Recent topics have included ‘thinking less like a lawyer’, and ‘the lawyer as business partner’.

‘It’s a collective, it’s a group, it’s not a legal entity, it’s not an NGO or association or anything, it’s just a group of people that benefit from this support for fostering women’s careers within legal,’ Barbagalo explains.

‘It’s not our target to be enormous, or to have thousands of subscribers, but to be effective and make a difference in the lives of women in-house counsel.’

In Mexico, the story of Abogadas MX began eight years ago, explains Paillés, who was recently elected president. Former president and founder Valeria Chapa (then general counsel for Latin America at Honeywell) returned from a Leadership Council for Legal Diversity (LCLD) fellowship program in the US, and questioned why there was nothing similar in Mexico. So, Abogadas MX was born.

‘We had very big dreams, we wanted to change everything,’ Paillés recalls.

The group started with a pilot mentoring program, where 20 senior lawyers mentored 20 younger lawyers. From there it launched an annual workshop with guest speakers – ‘we bring in people who make some sort of change in the minds of our members,’ says Paillés – which has been a virtual conference since 2020, enabling speakers to reach women outside Mexico City, in areas where equality and inclusion are scarcer.

From its beginnings as a group of 30 women lawyers, Abogadas MX is now an NGO with 700 members.

‘We have been very successful in gathering interesting people and working towards not necessarily information about law or technical information, but about soft skills that are required for women lawyers to succeed in these big law firms or international law firms or corporations,’ Paillés explains.

The organization is passionate, ambitious and structured. Four years ago, Antonia Rodriguez Miramon was hired as executive director, working with a council of senior female lawyers both in-house and in private practice, and a president.

‘We firmly believe that speaking about inclusion, diversity and leadership within the women’s sector directly translates into the development of our country,’ she says.

Through initiatives like the workshops, she adds, the organization provides a place ‘to be part of important topics to do with human development, professional development – not only legal things, but things that can nourish you as a person and help you grow.’

The work is built around four pillars: ‘support model’, where the organization provides courses, workshops, talks and networking opportunities for personal and professional development, including soft skills to hone leadership and networking skills; ‘impact on the environment’, which includes diversity and gender perspective masterclasses for law school students, and scholarship opportunities; a mentoring program; and the annual leadership and professional development workshop.

Advocacy is a key part of the Abogadas MX offering and, together with 38 law firms in the country, it has developed the ‘Mexican Standards of Diversity and Inclusion’. This takes the seven UN’s Women’s Empowerment Principles as a basis for a framework of principles to be applied to the legal profession in Mexico, and adds two more, regarding workplace sexual harassment, and gender and pro bono work.

‘We focus on being a community of women, or men allies, that know the importance of supporting gender and diversity in every place of their personal and professional lives,’ says Rodriguez Miramon.

For Barbagalo, the benefit of groups like Jurídico de Saias is precisely that sense of community. She describes her own experience of feeling alone and unsupported when returning from maternity leave and, for her, Jurídico de Saias fills a need that is especially powerful among outnumbered senior corporate counsel.

‘It’s to feel that you belong, to see that you have others like you, and to have support. Sometimes you don’t even know you have a problem if you don’t talk to others, and then you see, “Ok, there are more like me.” It is especially that you feel supported, that you have a place for equals to help you,’ she explains.

‘Being a young lawyer and having that kind of support from a group definitely would have helped me. When I got back from maternity leave, or in situations when I didn’t feel supported, I wouldn’t know there were more women like me. I wouldn’t know that I could be myself and could talk, and I could go to that group and say, “Am I crazy?” and feel ok to do that. It’s very common that people come and say, “That happened to me, is that ok, what should I have done, how should I react?” If you don’t have one formal group to do that, you don’t feel like you can look for this information, or you don’t feel confident in sharing, because it’s feels “gossipy”. But if there is an environment of openness and sharing, you see that what happens to you happens to others, and you can learn from that, and evolve, and feel empowered.’

At Women in Leadership in Latin America (WILL), that conversation takes place on a regional and even international level. Formed not only for lawyers – though managing vice president Leila Melo is one – WILL is a São Paulo-based non-profit with advisory boards in Bogotá, Miami, New York, Washington and London. Since 2013, it has supported and promoted the career development of women in Latin America, encouraged Latin America-based companies to implement programs for women in business, and promoted the exchange of best practices between national and international organizations.

Melo describes initiatives such as the annual Women in Leadership Survey – a free personal and professional development course for cisgender and transgender university students to encourage female leadership in finance, called the Dn’A Women – and the Empower Black Women to Senior Leadership mentoring program.

A wide network of women at all stages of their careers can function as a discussion forum to take stock and also move the conversation on – considering the spectrum of perspectives from generation Z, raised to expect, not request, equality, and of more seasoned women who are still fighting for it. In both Jurídico de Saias and Abogadas MX, that forum is cross-generational and both organizations have found making an intergenerational link to be fundamental in achieving sustainable empowerment for women.

‘We are very happy to see younger women looking for change, and the extent that they understand that change starts with us. Even though we need to have organizations, and men, and everybody else, involved in changing their bias, there is a little ignition, I would say, that is taking place within a lot of younger women, who want things to change,’ says Paillés.

‘We need to include younger women to see what they want and where they want to go, and how they are seeing these changes within their own organizations. You see it a lot with social media, and women doing things very differently than was done 20 or 30 years ago. Women on the board of directors of the organization are a little bit older and went through different things. I think we need that link, because the firms and the companies are controlled by older people, so we need to get that mix in place,’ says Paillés.

Adds Rodriguez Miramon: ‘We are living in an era with a lot of changes, and it’s really interesting how not only women but also men are interested in improving their way of working, the way they feel, their paternity leaves – and that finally is like a perfect match in getting our mission across faster and to talk about what we see as societal development.’

With the entry of new groups into the conversation, Barbagalo has found that a greater, and more evolved focus on inclusion and diversity is emerging, together with more understanding of intersectionality, in areas such as gender and race, but also in terms of considering all professionals as individuals with unique needs.

‘Different ways of working have a lot to do with diversity and inclusion because what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for me,’ she says.

For her, inclusion is an all-purpose tool, to be used beyond traditionally underrepresented groups, to improve the workplace as a whole. She puts this in the context of the pandemic:
‘I’m dying to go back to the office because I get distracted at home. Other people would prefer to be at home because they have a different routine. So how do we deal with that? We exercise our muscles of inclusion. I don’t look at this as a gender problem, or a race problem, or whatever problem. I just look at the different perspectives, a different person than I am, a different reality than I have.’

At WILL, Melo is conscious of the need to guarantee the rights of all vulnerable groups, not just women, and sees equality in terms of political action, health, security and education as well as the labor market.

‘When we look at the representation of women or black people in our society, or when we study the indicators of violence against the LGBTQIA+ population, or the access of people with disabilities to inclusive education and the labor market, the data show that we still face a serious situation of vulnerability and inequality,’ she says.

She believes it behoves private organizations to promote the inclusion and development of underrepresented groups in the corporate environment – and the lawyers within those organizations can play a key role.

‘Knowledge of legislation and legal issues contributes in an important way in proposing affirmative actions in the corporate environment and in private social investment, promoting advocacy for the creation of public policies that contribute to the guarantee of rights and the consolidation of a more inclusive society,’ says Melo.

Lawyers are well-represented on the board of WILL for this reason, she explains, and function as another voice in an organization which creates space for exchange between different agents of society.

In another effort to broaden the conversation, WILL has sought to involve men, with initiatives like its ‘Inviting Men to the Debate’ panel event, where leaders from national and multinational companies exchange views and experiences, and the ‘Homens da Nossa Época’ (‘Men of Our Time’), a series of interviews with male executives, who share and discuss their experiences about what it means to be a man in their time, along with conversation about diversity and inclusion.

‘For gender equality in the corporate environment, I see that organizations like WILL have been playing an important role in mediating this agenda at companies and engaging in dialogue with men, who still occupy most of the leadership positions, so that they can also understand that gender equality is also their responsibility,’ says Melo.

Abogadas MX has taken the step of admitting men as board members, mentors, workshop participants and allies – and has discovered that their presence brings the opportunity for a synergistic learning experience.

‘Maybe men don’t understand how important it is for certain skills to be there in order to succeed [in the workplace], and they think it’s a challenge where you have to run to do the best work. And it’s not that you don’t need to do the best work, it’s just that you need some additional things within your persona,’ says Paillés.

‘When they come out of these workshops, young [male] associates from law firms are amazed, because they really get touched by our analyses and it’s broadening their minds. Even the older men, when they go into this 450-woman meeting and they are a minority, just by being there they see how women feel when you go into a meeting and there’s only one of you.’

As the reach of Abogadas MX grows, so has its influence as a pressure and conscious-raising force in the industry, its leaders believe.

‘We started in a niche of high-end law firms and companies, and I think that we have become some sort of itch in every place that we’ve touched, and they know that they’ve got to change,’ says Paillés.

‘We believe that women at that level are getting stronger at requesting that their rights are met and that they are given what they deserve, and that they need to be in the same competition as men – because it’s not a matter of just “giving me things because I’m a woman”, but that we need to be at the same level. In that niche of law firms and companies I think we have made enough noise for there to be a small change.’

But there is much work to be done. The organization is working to extend its influence beyond elite law firms and corporations, to reach legally qualified women such as notaries public, or growing its program of classes at public universities, broadening its socio-economic reach into corners where bias might lurk.

‘It’s really important for us to start talking about mobility in terms of social mobility and in terms of opening our network,’ says Rodriguez Miramon.

The organization is also expanding beyond Mexico City, building on its chapters in Monterrey and Puebla.

‘It’s a matter of conscience, and we need to open up and touch more people so that the conscience of everyone starts moving. It’s a matter of making clicks within the minds of more and more people,’ says Paillés.

Systemic cultural change needs broader action than solely that of underrepresented groups. But women themselves are creating momentum to raise their own tide, lifting not only their own professional presence, but that of generations to come.

I love the way the DEI team at Johnson and Johnson puts it: you belong. I love it because it’s about feeling comfortable to bring your true self to work.

It’s indispensable to have everybody’s point of view – if you have customers, patients and stakeholders all over the world, it’s important to have a wide variety of people inside the Company.
But, in addition to that, I think when you’re comfortable being yourself, you’re more creative. You feel better about raising your hand and shouting out your ideas and about participating. I also think when you’re comfortable being yourself, you’re better engaged.

Getting the culture right

We always think about our law department culture as one of camaraderie. We get invited to speak, with colleagues from other countries, about the future of our law department and how to make it better, and we’re always focused on making sure that, even as our department has grown over the years, we keep that camaraderie culture. I think we’re succeeding in that process, and I think that’s a very good grounding for DEI.

We have periodic training on different topics, for example, on unconscious bias, on building trust, and on many subjects related to DEI.

We also have Employee Resource Groups – we have groups that champion women, we have the ‘open and out’ group, which is a group that supports the LGBTQIA+ community, and we recently launched a group in Colombia that is supportive of indigenous communities.

We have been learning from the US team, which has been very active in examining racial inequality and social injustice; we’ve had book-clubs, we’ve had movie discussions, we’ve had experts come to talk to us.

Something that we had recently, that I thought was incredible, were some talks by experts on menopause, which is something that is part of being a woman, but we sometimes take it for granted. We are taught about giving birth, about being a mother, and about many things, but not about something that is so inherent to our lives as menopause. That, I think, is how inclusive our law department is.

Living DEI day-to-day

In the law department at Johnson & Johnson, one of the members of the leadership team of our general counsel is always responsible for DEI, and at the regional levels we also have leaders of DEI initiatives and DEI committees. We have some programs and initiatives that are global, and others that are regional. DEI is part of our strategic planning in the law department, and people report on our DEI efforts regularly.

We have some global objectives that we have to complete within the year – so there is some training we have to complete, we have to make sure that our goals include DEI goals, and in our conversations with our leaders, we report on how we met or did not meet those goals. But we also have a DEI committee at the regional level and, at the LatAm law department, we have our own strategic planning that we have to present to the global council. We report to them at least every quarter, and tell them how we’re doing, what we’ve finished, what we didn’t, and whether we completed our plan or not.

I think our law department leaders have made the law department really live DEI; it’s not something to check the box, but it’s really in our way of thinking.

Appreciating difference

I had a chance to lead the law department DEI group for Latin America a couple of years ago. We wanted to make sure that we respected everybody’s holidays, so we made a calendar to make sure that no regional meetings were ever scheduled during special holidays for different people in the group.

We tend to all speak Spanish in the meetings and leave our colleagues in Brazil on the side, so we tried to work on that by balancing the meetings – having some parts in Portuguese and some parts in Spanish. We even shared some glossaries of words in both languages, so we could all feel more comfortable.

We had an initiative called ‘beyond the label’, where with each LatAm law department newsletter, we got to know one of our colleagues – so, for example, someone might be the IP lawyer, but they are also interested in wildlife conservation and had a chance to live in Africa in an elephant nursery. We’ve had things like that, to connect at another
level.

It might not be rocket science, but these are things that keep us on our toes and thinking about how we’re different.

The importance of listening

On a personal level, I think being constantly reminded of the importance of listening is key in DEI. Lawyers are used to talking a lot and, in a way, we may not be so good at listening. I think the best way to make sure that everybody feels welcome, and that we hear everyone’s voice, is if we learn to listen.

I think legal strategies benefit greatly from other points of view, so I always discuss the important strategies with the business, with our marketing director, with our general manager, and I think that’s also inclusion. And that comes together with leaving aside the legal language – I like to think of myself like a translator, translating legal language into business language.

Latin America is a melting point for ancestries, ethnicities and races, making it one of the most diverse regions in the world. It is also a region where minorities face significant barriers to employment. For example, recent studies show that around 90% of board seats are occupied by men. If women are not represented on boards of those huge companies that are listed, it’s hard to claim a true commitment to diversity.

ADP’s executive team in Latin America has a 40% women representation. This is well above the market average in the region. ADP was recently recognized by Great Place to Work (GPTW) as a top employer for women in Chile and Peru.

We were able to reach to this point because of the tone at the top. ADP has taken several affirmative actions to make sure diversity and inclusion is part of our DNA. In ADP, diversity and inclusion is not an HR only issue. The leadership team strongly supports D&I actions.

ADP has a global diversity and inclusion office, with dedicated associates. The D&I office works closely with HR and leaders of business units. The leadership is highly engaged and involved in diversity and inclusion globally. In Latin America, each senior leader sponsors a Business Resource Group (BRG). Since I joined ADP, I have sponsored iWIN’s activities in Latin America.

ADP’s iWIN

iWIN (International Women’s Inclusive Network) is ADP’s BRG with a focus on gender equality. iWIN currently has around 7,000 members across 16 countries around the globe. That is a big chunk of ADP’s 60,000 employees.

iWIN’s activities are conducted by a global board comprised of 25 ADP associates and by local chapters distributed in different regions and countries. iWIN organises events to create awareness, education and training – on unconscious bias, for instance. Our main goal is to make ADP a more diverse and inclusive place, not only in the workplace, but we also think about how we can impact the business and the communities close to us.

Doing the right thing

At ADP, the legal team plays an important role in terms of providing the business a perspective on what is the right thing to do. One of ADP’s main value is ‘integrity is everything’. Integrity is about doing the right thing all the time. In this sense, diversity and inclusion is the right thing to do.

When the legal team organizes the compliance week and trainings in Latin America, we educate our associates on anti-bribery and other relevant compliance aspects, but we also take the opportunity to discuss conduct, respect and inclusion. We create opportunities to discuss with associates about being inclusive and respectful with their colleagues at work, with family members, and when using social media.

Keeping an open eye

Corporate legal departments play an important role in promoting diversity and inclusion in the legal market in Latin America. We can influence the private practice market as clients and exchange experiences through our network groups.

When diversity and inclusion is part of your agenda, you will constantly call attention to inequalities, share practices to improve D&I awareness. It is important that in-house counsel keep an eye on what law firms are doing in terms of diversity and inclusion: if they have their own policies and if they are taking real actions towards their associates.

In Latin America, we have our eyes open to prioritizing discussions about minorities, either on the compliance training, hiring process, or when choosing a service provider.