About

Carolina Forero is a practicing attorney from the Universidad de los Andes with a LLM from the London School of Economics and Political Science, a specialist degree in environmental law from the Universidad Externado de Colombia, and with a diploma in business studies from the Javeriana University. She is also an official translator and interpreter for the English and Spanish languages, registered with the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With more than eight years of experience as associate attorney in law firms, more than three years of working experience as in-house counsel in multinational companies in the healthcare sector, and more than a year of working experience as regional ethics and compliance manager in a multinational company she joined Janssen Cilaq, an affiliate of Johnson & Johnson in Colombia in 2013 with great success. Forero created the in-house legal department for the Latin America North cluster, which covers Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, from scratch. At the beginning she personally attended every legal request from the business, and she says that gave her ‘a very good understanding of the business and the legal requirements for the strategy and tactical side of the business’. During her second year in the position, the firm decided to terminate the distribution agreement that had been in place for products in Ecuador for decades. This implied the beginning of direct operations in the country which she described as ‘a wonderful opportunity to work closely with all areas of the company and share the excitement of the launch of Janssen Ecuador’. Since the beginning of 2018, Forero has been part of the team responsible for the repatriation of a new line of business in orphan diseases after the purchase of a new company by Johnson & Johnson, an area it had not had previous experience in. A nominator said, ‘Forero is an exceptional legal professional with broad knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry. She joined the Johnson & Johnson family back in 2013 and currently works as legal manager for the north cluster Latin America of Janssen Cilag. She has successfully supported the organisation [during] important periods of change achieving relevant results with notable efficiency. She is recognised for her wide experience in handling complex in-house work. Forero is closely involved in the diversity and inclusion initiatives of Janssen in Latin America’. She implemented changes in the way the company operates in relation to its legal matters at every level: The department has implemented a technological platform for the request, approval, drafting and repository of contracts, and the department now has a seat in the management board and provides them advice on legal and even business matters. Forero says that, ‘the [new] law department has been very well received by the business. It has implied important savings on time and money. I feel very happy because it has also implied a greater awareness from different areas of the company of legal risks involved in their activities and therefore has resulted in a much more preventive approach, for the benefit of the company and all employees’.