The firm's new partners are Bibiana Cala, Daniela Liévano, María Montejo, Angélica Navarro, Natalia Ponce de León, María Cecilia Reyes and Yuliana Salamanca.

With these appointments, the firm also seeks to reflect its commitment to inclusion, diversity and the promotion of women in leadership positions within the legal sector, the firm said in a statement.

By 2025, Baker McKenzie aspires to achieve a 40:40:20 gender diversity, that is, to have a payroll composed of 40% women, 40% men and 20% flexible (men, women and non-binary people), and, as of June 2023, the firm's leadership team in Colombia will be made up of 70% women and 30% men.

Bibiana Cala has over 18 years of experience on criminal litigation, focused professional on criminal law and intellectual property and with a master's degree in Ibero-American compliance. Her professional practice is focused on corporate criminal law, business fraud and corruption. She has advised national and international business of different sectors of the economy and successfully defended the rights and interest of companies and their managers in criminal proceedings. She joined Baker McKenzie in 2012.

Daniela Liévano Bahamón graduated from Los Andes University, and in labor and employment law from the Javeriana University in Bogota, and holds a master’s degree in laws from Columbia University, New York. She joined Baker McKenzie in 2011 and focuses her practice on providing legal advice on administrative matters before local government entities and advises on union matters, individual employment agreements, expatriate management, mechanisms and alternatives for outsourcing of services, and corporate social responsibility.

María Montejo Torres is a member of the Firm's International Commercial and infrastructure groups. Prior to joining the Firm in 2013, María worked in the corporate-M&A group of a leading Colombian law firm. María focuses on commercial contracts, public procurement and infrastructure projects. She advises clients investing in Colombia to structure complex cross-border commercial arrangements ranging from franchising and distribution schemes to joint ventures and public procurement, infrastructure law and PPPs, administrative procedures and sanctions.

For her part, Angelica Navarro served as an advisor to the superintendent of Industry and Commerce on antitrust and merger control. Prior to that, she was an adviser to the director of the National Protection Unit, where she was in charge of the formulation and execution on protection and human rights programs. Angelica has developed her professional experience in the private and public sector on issues related to competition law, compliance, consumer protection, administrative law, constitutional law, public and private procurement and commercial law. She has also provided merger control advice in several merger transactions to international companies as well as consumer protection and data privacy advice to local and international companies.

Natalia Ponce de León is senior associate of the M&A and private equity practice with over 11 years of experience, focusing on advising foreign clients and private equity funds on acquisitions of assets in Colombia. She joined Baker McKenzie’s M&A practice in 2014 after completing an LLM at New York University, and was admitted to the New Yok Bar in 2017.
She is an experienced M&A attorney, as well as in private equity and corporate law, and her practice involves foreign and local clients in numerous industries, with an emphasis on cross-border transactions. She also has broad experience advising private equity funds, preparing and negotiating fund rules and advising on regulatory matters.

Maria Cecilia Reyes focuses on social security and immigration matters, and focuses on pension issues, expatriates, compensation and benefits, and negotiations. She joined the firm in 2005 as a student in the labor practice group.

Currently, she routinely advises on general labor law matters, employment aspects of transactions and non-transactional projects, social security matters, labor agreements, advisory on payroll benefits, promotion in collective labor agreements for massive workers' terminations, advisory on workers' transfer, the labor aspects of mergers and acquisitions, liquidation of companies, labor audits, and health and safety matters.

And new partner Yuliana Salamanca Jaramillo has been promoted from senior associate in the firm’s intellectual property practice in Bogotá, where she started working as a law clerk while enrolled in law school in 2006. She received scholarships from Boston University and Colfuturo, a Colombian non-profit organization, for her higher education and master’s degree in law.

She has handled legal assignments relating to intellectual property locally and regionally for several multinationals, trademark and copyright prosecution and litigation, particularly matters related to infringement and unfair competition actions, licensing and IP agreements. She also dedicates a great part of her work to metaverses and digital assets.

Alejandro Mesa, the firm’s managing partner in Colombia, said: "through the appointment of our new partners we are strengthening each of the practice areas to which they belong, as well as the services offered to our clients, based on their recognized experience and great knowledge".