About

With more than twenty years of experience as a lawyer, Ana Carolina Alcalá Wilson has gained a steady reputation in several jurisdictions in Latin America for her legal talent. During her career she has provided legal support in the areas of finance, human resources, IT, and communications. Based in Panama, as the legal and corporate affairs manager for Kimberly-Clark Central America Holdings, she oversees the operations of Panama, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and the rest of the Caribbean islands. Among her main responsibilities, she gives legal support to all operation areas of the company generating value to the company and facilitating the decision making, while ensuring compliance with the laws of the country as well as internal policies. A project that has had a lot of her attention was in 2016, when Kimberly-Clark began to evaluate whether to suspend operations in Venezuela, an action Alcalá describes as a ‘difficult’ decision given the company’s long history of operating in the country. As a result, the company’s office in Caracas along with its mill and distribution centre in Maracay were indefinitely closed and Kimberly-Clark no longer manufactures, markets or sells its line of consumer goods or professional products in Venezuela. ‘This project was crucial in the development of my career and broadened my knowledge in taking measured and calculated risks, considering the necessities of the business, including providing timely solutions’, says Alcalá. Her involvement has also been needed for Kimberly-Clark’s arbitration proceedings against the Venezuelan government at the International Center for Settlement of Investment. This is the first time that she has worked directly in an international arbitration case, and she explains that, ‘the complexity of the case has enriched me professionally and has allowed me to acquire the knowledge that is not frequent in legal positions such as those I have exercised to date’, says Alcalá. Internally, she is part of the multidisciplinary team that supports the execution of the company’s restructuring program in the region which will reduce expenses as it faces stiffer competition for consumer staples like tissues, paper towels and wet wipes. As part of the restructuring moves she has been assigned to the Panama and Caribbean clusters, increasing the countries under her supervision and further endorsing her legal and managerial talent.