About

The Spanish-headquartered global banking company BBVA began operating in Chile in 1998 by acquiring BHIF Bank and AFP Provida the following year. At around the same time Alberto Vergara was completing his law degree whilst also working as a paralegal with Baker McKenzie in their dispute resolution practice group in their Santiago office. After graduating he was made an associate in 2003 and a year later began teaching constitutional law at his alma mater. Vergara was at Baker McKenzie until 2010 but during that period he won an international scholarship granted by the firm to its top associates, which allowed him to obtain an LLM at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago. Having acquired vast knowledge at prestigious institutions up until that point, Vergara accepted the invitation to join the new administration of President Piñera, joining the legal staff of the Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency, to provide legal advice directly to the President as a deputy legal counsel. For Vergara ‘the recruiting and coordination of a whole new legal team of young talented attorneys, that served for almost four years, with high quality and passion, as legal advisers of the Chilean President’ was a particular career highlight. In 2012 he was appointed general counsel of the Chilean Ministry of Education and managed a legal team of more than 50 lawyers and paralegals, overseeing the legal contingencies of the biggest Ministry in Chile in terms of fiscal budget. Following his government roles he returned to private practice for a two year spell at boutique firm Arteaga & Gorziglia to focus on litigation and antitrust. Having further developed his expertise in these areas, Vergara assumed his current position as deputy legal counsel at BBVA Chile in 2016. In this role he oversees the bank’s litigation and regulation matters, and oversaw the integration and coordination of the two areas. ‘In my opinion, that change is allowing the wider company to use ligation as a tool to prevent future contingencies and to have a more proactive and less reactive approach to the regulation area’, he says. Vergara is also using his ‘deep, close and fluid relationship’ with the general counsel, CEO and other senior management to handle the expansion of several regulations impacting the financial industry by taking a more proactive and early approach to new regulations.