About

A globally educated lawyer with a strong educational background that incorporates degrees from Universidad del Rosario, Universidad Externado de Colombia and Fordham University, Mauricio Cuesta also boasts over 14 years of business experience in law firms and corporations in Colombia and abroad. An expert in M&A transactions, Cuesta’s legal career zigzagged between in-house and private practice several times and is characterised by passion, excellence, professional development and the formation of solid business relationships. Starting out as a junior lawyer at a boutique law firm specialising in intellectual property (IP) and family-owned businesses, Cuesta quickly gained recognition for his contribution to IP work and important business transactions. In January 2002 Cuesta was recruited by the US international conglomerate Kraft Foods because of his experience in IP and knowledge of corporate transactions. During his two years at Kraft, Cuesta closed business deals across Latin America, Europe and Asia and contributed actively to the negotiation and acquisition of new technology for the company. Moving again to private practice in 2007, Cuesta spent the next two years of his career at Bogotá-based firm Brigard & Urrutia, with a focus on M&A and financing for infrastructure projects. Between 2009 and 2011, Cuesta served as a legal vice president at Team Foods, a Colombian food production company with operations in Colombia, Mexico and Chile. As member of the senior executive team, Cuesta structured the legal department to support the business in the three jurisdictions and designed the strategy to protect the intellectual property of the business. This experience, along with a further four years as an attorney with the corporate and M&A group of Posse Herrera & Ruiz Abogados, gave Cuesta the grounding in both operational expertise and knowledge of transactions to work as general counsel at CI Colombian Natural Resources, a mining and hydrocarbons company.