Turenna Ramirez Ortiz Shares Her Journey as One of Mexico's First Female Managing Partners
Holland & Knight's Diversity Council and Hispanic Affinity Group are proud to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month and pay tribute to the generations of Hispanics who have enriched America's history and continue to play a role in its future success. We now present the 2024 video series showcasing some of these conversations. We hope that the stories conveyed in these videos inspire those struggling with recognizing their roots and shine light on the contributions that Hispanics have offered the legal community and beyond.
In this video, Mexico City Partner Turenna Ramirez Ortiz shares her journey as a Hispanic woman in the legal profession. She highlights her experiences working in the United States and becoming one of the first female partners and managing partners in Mexico, reflecting on the challenges she faced and overcame. Ms. Ramirez encourages aspiring professionals to acknowledge their imperfections, focus on their goals and view their Hispanic heritage as a strength in their career development.
Turenna Ramirez Ortiz: My name is Turenna Ramirez Ortiz. I am an international trade and customs partner at Holland & Knight in Mexico City. I specialize in customs and trade, advising multinational companies doing business in Mexico and in the Latin American region. I am very excited to be here today sharing with you my story in this Hispanic Heritage Month spotlight.
Sharing my story would be told in a different perspective, since I was born and raised here in Mexico, my parents always wanted me to have an American international education. I was actually born in Puebla, a city nearby Mexico, that offered me also a very strong culture to our roots. My family, I have only one brother, and we are part of a very small family in Mexico. I had opportunity to travel to the United States, to Washington, D.C., and work with a very interesting man called Kika de la Garza. He was a congressman from Texas. It was very important for me, this experience, because I was actually the only Mexican working at his office, and I learned a lot about the U.S. society, the way that they manage politics and businesses in the States, and for me that was a game changer.
In the law environment, especially in Mexico, being a female associate growing up and then becoming one of the first women partners in one of the major firms here in Mexico City and afterwards becoming the first female managing partner in the whole Mexican republic for me was something that was not automatic, I needed to face a lot of challenges. Sometimes people are, are tough.
In my international travels and throughout my career, the International [Bar] Association or the American Bar Association or many other associations, even the World Customs Organization, that at some point I was very involved with — the secretary general of that specific organization creating or elaborating a lot of national programs in terms of international trade and prohibition for counterfeited goods and privacy in Mexico — that gave me a lot of also exposure to this international community in my practice of expertise. But I would say that throughout the years, I mean — and again, being the only present Hispanic or Hispanic woman — that combination was very powerful and very unique. The minorities have always the power to be the ones that are going to be seen, and since you are going to be, perhaps, analyzed with much more scrutiny, I would say, you should always be acknowledging the fact that this heritage that you have upon yourself, it's a huge opportunity and a huge weapon for you to succeed in what you need, because they will always remember you if you do a very good job.
First of all, I think that you will need to acknowledge that you are not going to be perfect, that sometimes it's good to know that because you are human, after all. But if you have a business target and you have a great sense, you have a school target, you need to, to try to find a way to make it work. Sometimes you will, and sometimes you will not. But that is OK. I think that if you focus your mind on the fact that if you want to be a parent, you need to give the best that you can. If you want to be a partner, you need to be the best that you can. Sometimes that eases that, the way that you can manage your day-to-day challenges, put it together and be conscious about the fact that you are not perfect, that sometimes you will fail, that is OK, but you need to overcome that failure. You need to believe in yourself and in the fact that even if you are faced with complication throughout your career, throughout your professional development, you need to be respectful of yourself.