Career Biography

Marcela Castillo Noguerón is a senior legal executive with more than 35 years of experience in the Mexican financial sector. Throughout her career, she has built a strong reputation for combining deep legal expertise with a practical understanding of banking, wealth management, capital markets, corporate finance and financial regulation.

She currently serves as Legal Executive Director at Scotiabank, where she leads legal support for key areas of the organisation, including wealth management, capital markets, private investments, foreign exchange and debt markets, and corporate and mid-market finance. In this role, she provides strategic legal advice on sophisticated financial transactions and regulatory matters and works closely with senior business leaders and control functions.

Marcela has been part of Scotiabank since 2003. Over more than two decades with the organisation, she has held senior legal positions covering corporate and retail banking, digital banking, treasury, derivatives, securities markets, institutional contracting, strategic alliances and other central functions. She has also provided legal advice to The Bank of Nova Scotia in connection with cross-border financing and other international transactions.

Among her key achievements is her involvement in the negotiation and legal structuring of complex financing transactions, including syndicated loans, leveraged buyouts, project finance, real estate financing, restructurings and private securitisations. She has extensive experience negotiating derivatives documentation under ISDA and ISDAMEX frameworks and advising on banking, securities and financial regulation. Her career has also included providing legal support for corporate M&A transactions, fintech and digital banking initiatives, strategic alliances, outsourcing arrangements and cross-border operations.

An important part of Marcela’s professional contribution has been her interaction with the broader Mexican financial sector. She has represented Scotiabank before the Mexican Banking Association and local regulatory authorities and, earlier in her career, advised Mexican broker-dealers through the Mexican Association of Securities Intermediaries, contributing to research and proposals on new financial products and securities market regulation.

Marcela earned her law degree from Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City and has been admitted to practise law in Mexico since 1991. She complemented her education with specialised studies in Financial Law at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Trade Finance at the International Chamber of Commerce, and in-house legal training at The Bank of Nova Scotia’s Toronto headquarters.

Marcela’s career reflects sustained leadership, technical expertise and a long-standing commitment to the evolution of Mexico’s financial sector.

Add a sharper leadership profileReduce repetition around legal expertise