About

Metro Atlanta-based YKK Corporation of America oversees the operations of Japanese manufacturing group YKK – best known as the world’s largest manufacturer of zips – in Canada, the US and Central and Latin America. Since 2011, Valeria Cometto has served as lead counsel for the US company’s employment affairs with parallel responsibility for all legal and compliance matters in Latin America. As such, Cometto oversees a range of work relating to YKK’s manufacturing centres in Mexico and El Salvador and its offices in Honduras and Medellín, Colombia, home of the country’s booming fashion industry. One nominator who has worked closely with Cometto says, ‘her role is very broad and sees her involved in all aspects of the company’s operations in the region. She seems to do everything and anything that will help the company to achieve its objectives, which is a good definition of a strong general counsel’. Before she joined YKK, Cometto was an employment litigator at the Atlanta office of Ford & Harrison.