Turning fears into goals by Gabriela Roca

By Dee Sekar | December 17, 2015

This year I had the great opportunity to participate in The Role of Women and Diversity in the Corporate World seminar organized by Chambers Diversity, and to be honest, when I confirmed my participation I never imagine this experience would be a life-changing one.

I met with around 100 great lawyers that during the day. Many shared their experiences on how and why being a woman in a corporate world and specially in the legal world is something not only to be proud of but a great responsibility.

I have never been conscious as much as I became after that meeting, of the great opportunity I have as a female partner of a Guatemalan law firm, to share my story and to help other women around me achieve their goals and turn their dreams into realities.

I became aware that I was in a great position to do something to encourage other women, starting with the ones in our firm, to take risks, and to turn their inner need of perfection into an ally that will help them move forward.

At QIL+4Abogados, we are 3 women partners out of 8 partners, and 50% of the employees of our firm are women. This makes for great statistics for diversity in a country where most women do not finish high school. We decided to start a mentoring program where we plan to support not only women but also men as we want to raise their awareness of diversity and strongly encourage those to work towards it. Diversity produces inventiveness, imagination and competitiveness. The mentoring program will start internally but by the end of 2016, we hope to enlist other firms in the program. Diversity is not a trend but a reality and allowing it should be a goal.