Career Biography

María Ignacia Castro is a business executive and general counsel with two decades of experience leading legal, regulatory, corporate governance, and strategic affairs functions in highly regulated industries, including energy, infrastructure, transportation, capital markets, and public services.

Throughout her career, she has developed a reputation as a business-oriented lawyer who combines deep technical expertise with strategic judgement, enabling organisations to navigate complex regulatory environments, execute transformational transactions, manage institutional risk, and achieve sustainable growth. Her academic background includes a Law Degree and LL.M. in Business Law from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, complemented by executive business training through the Senior MBA programme at ESE Business School.

Currently, she serves as general counsel at Colbún S.A., one of Latin America’s leading renewable energy and power generation companies. In this role, she is responsible for the company’s legal, corporate governance, compliance, regulatory, and strategic legal affairs across a complex and evolving energy landscape. As a member of senior management, she provides legal leadership on strategic investments, regulatory matters, major commercial agreements, project development, financing transactions, stakeholder engagement, and corporate governance matters that are critical to the company’s long-term growth and sustainability.

Prior to joining Colbún, she served as general counsel at Metro S.A., Chile’s largest urban transportation company and one of the country’s most important public infrastructure organisations. There, she led Legal Affairs and Corporate Governance functions while acting as a trusted adviser to the Board and executive leadership team. One of her most significant achievements was transforming the legal function from a traditional support area into a strategic business partner fully integrated into corporate decision-making. She also played a key role in Metro’s institutional recovery and reconstruction following the social unrest of 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic and provided legal leadership for the company’s largest expansion programme, involving the simultaneous construction of three new metro lines, a US$8 bn. project.

Earlier in her career, she co-founded Bruzzone & González Abogados, where she advised major corporations and business groups on corporate reorganisations, mergers and acquisitions, and complex commercial transactions. Prior to that, she created and led the Corporate Finance and M&A practice at Bofill Mir Álvarez Jana Abogados, participating in several landmark transactions in the Chilean market, including cross-border acquisitions, mining transactions, bond issuances, and corporate restructurings. Her transaction experience spans multiple sectors and includes both domestic and international investors.

Her professional trajectory also includes leadership roles in the transportation sector, where she managed significant contractual renegotiations and financial restructurings, as well as public service in Chile’s Ministry of Finance, where she contributed to major capital markets reforms and participated in the early negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-11).

Today, María Ignacia is recognised as one of Chile’s leading in-house legal executives, distinguished by her ability to align legal strategy with business objectives, lead high-performing multidisciplinary teams, engage effectively with regulators and policymakers, and provide trusted counsel to boards and senior executives during periods of transformation and growth. Her leadership was recognised through her nomination for the 2024 Executive of the Year Award by Diario Financiero and Fundación Mujeres Empresarias.

María Ignacia has lead energy transition, sustainability, major infrastructure investments, governance, and strategic leadership dimensions that are increasingly expected in international board and C-suite profiles.