About

A well-educated and highly experienced lawyer, Alex Visbal combines his duties of general counsel and chief compliance and ethics officer at Fortune 500 industrial supply company Grainger Colombia with a role in academia, working as a professor in international business law and international custom law at Universidad del Norte. In his role at Grainger, Visbal oversees legal and compliance matters in line with regional and global strategy formed by the senior management of the parent company based in Chicago, Illinois. A commercially minded lawyer, Visbal has been able to build a strong relationship with senior management, which has led to the legal function being viewed as a partner to the business rather than a roadblock. Visbal is now asked to propose a business plan on legal and compliance matters in line with the regional and global strategy of the parent company. The main highlights of Visbal’s career relate to avoiding sanctions against his company, improving business acumen and successfully conducting negotiations to obtain commercial forecasts. Prior to joining Grainger in 2011, Visbal worked in health care, initially as an in-house attorney at health insurance business Nueva EPS and then as legal coordinator at one of the most significant health companies in Colombia, Salud Total. Visbal understands well the benefits of commercial focus among in-house lawyers and provides invaluable advice to his peers: ‘General counsel need to think first as entrepreneurs and businessmen and later as attorneys, but always protecting the business and govern by ethics’.