About

Mariel Picado Quevedo is the general counsel at Florida Ice and Farm Company (FIFCO), a publicly traded Costa Rican entity created in 1908. It serves as a holding company for a number of entities that make up FIFCO’s core business, mainly divided into food and beverages, real estate and hospitality and retail with operations in Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala and the US. She has been at the company for over 13 years – holding two very different roles throughout her tenure. The initial years for Picado were focused on M&A opportunities and counsel to higher management for particular projects, while the company gradually transitioned from an outside-counsel-centric model, in which the legal department reported directly to the chief financial officer, to developing an in-house department, with a key strategic role within the company. Then latterly, as of 2015, the legal department became part of the company’s executive committee, along with eight other directors, something which Picado explains helped in ‘cementing its status as major influence over the decision making process of board of directors, senior management and overall direction of the company’. Prior to joining FIFCO, Picado worked for several years within the government of Costa Rica at the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and held several positions under which she had relevant participation in Costa Rica’s process of globalisation, through the negotiation and execution of several free trade agreements. She also notably participated as Costa Rican chief negotiator at the dispute resolution and institutional provisions negotiating group of the
DR-CAFTA, which promotes stronger trade and investment ties and stability throughout the region.