About

As corporate legal vice-president and general counsel of the billion dollar Colombian bank, Grupo Bancolombia, Mauricio Rosillo Rojas occupies a prominent position in Colombia’s financial sector and in-house legal market. He joined the firm in 2008 and has contributed heavily on Bancolombia’s major bank acquisitions in Latin America over the course of his ten years there such as Banistmo, Banco Agrícola and BAM among others as well as most recently, Bancolombia’s hybrid bond issuance. In his first year as Bancolombia’s legal vice-president, he was able to settle a number of substantial lawsuits to the financial industry and of considerable amounts for Bancolombia at the time and had the following to say regarding this: ‘I learned from these multiple negotiations and amicable settlements that a main skill an attorney must have is the right combination of specific technical knowledge, with the humbleness to determine when is better to settle a case than to enter into a lawsuit that can take years to be resolved, which can save all parties involved important amount of time, effort and money’. With such experinces he also acquired the crucial skills required to actively participate in the Group’s reorganisation and expansion through M&A activities. Prior to joining Bancolombia, Rosillo worked for Colombia’s Stock Exchange Market (SRO) for two years as Colombia’s first ever executive president the SRO. Whilst in that role he gained credit for importing and implementing the Stock Market’s regulated self-regulatory model based on the US and Canadian model. Before that role Rosillo was the financial regulation director at the Ministry of Finance where he says he ‘acted as a key regulatory agent for the financial and capital markets systems, issuing diverse regulatory mandates that highly promoted such markets elevating them to international standards’. He adds that, ‘One of many milestones reached in this role was being a key player to get to issue laws as important as Law 964 of 2005 (Securities Market Framework Law) that allowed further regulatory development involving every key aspect related to the stock market’. In his current role at Bancolombia he has been commended for his efforts in gender equality by appointing and empowering highly capable women as directors within his 400-strong legal department, handling critical areas such as litigations, compliance, trust, corporate and private banking, regulatory and public affairs and corporate governance among others. In parallel with his professional role, Rosillo has also been involved in academia as the Banking and Financial Law Specialization’s director at Javeriana University and as a law professor at Andes and Javeriana Universities for over 15 years.