Beatriz Araujo is a lawyer based in London who was admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales in 1987. She spent almost four decades at the international law firm Baker & McKenzie, becoming a partner and head of its corporate governance practice, and she later combined legal practice with governance education and international governance networks.
Background
Beatriz Araujo was born in the United States. Her academic and professional life later developed across Cambridge, Madrid and London, where she qualified as a solicitor and built her career.
England's legal profession has long separated solicitors from barristers, and solicitors qualified through the Law Society's final examinations. Araujo completed these examinations in 1983 and was admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales in 1987. The Law Society, the professional body for solicitors in England and Wales, administered these examinations until they were replaced by the Solicitors Qualifying Examination in 2021.
Education
Beatriz Araujo studied law at the University of Cambridge, earning a Bachelor of Arts with honours in 1981 and a Master of Arts in 1986. Cambridge is a collegiate university whose origins go back to the thirteenth century, and its students belong both to the university and to one of its colleges.
In 1983 she completed the Law Society Finals at the University of Westminster, which was then known as the Polytechnic of Central London. The polytechnic was formed in 1970, and the institution regained university status in 1992.
From 1983 to 1985 she studied at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Founded in 1499 at Alcalá de Henares, the university moved to Madrid in 1836 and is now one of Spain's largest public universities.
Later she completed executive education in corporate governance at INSEAD, earning a Certificate in Corporate Governance in 2016, and a programme on sustainable capitalism and ESG at Berkeley Law Executive Education in 2021. INSEAD, a business school founded in 1957, has its main campus in Fontainebleau, France.
Career
Beatriz Araujo's professional career was built largely at Baker & McKenzie, a firm founded in Chicago in 1949 by Russell Baker and John McKenzie. It became the first multinational law firm in the world, and by 1978 it had 26 offices in 20 countries. She joined the firm in 1985 and became a partner in 1994, working from its London office.
Her practice focused on advising boards and multinational groups on company law, particularly director duties and corporate governance. She led the firm's Corporate Governance Group and served as Head of Corporate Governance in London until July 2023. In October 2009 the firm's global partnership elected her to serve full time for a four-year term on its Global Executive Committee, and she also served on the firm's global board.
Alongside her firm career she served as Head Tutor of the senior executive course Governance for a Sustainable Future at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. The institute, linked to the University of Cambridge, offers executive education on sustainability and leadership.
Achievements
Served as team lead for the Trust Matters and Trust Continuum initiatives at Baker & McKenzie.
Views
Araujo's professional focus has been on embedding governance and values in organisations so that companies can build trust with their stakeholders and with regulators.
Membership
Beatriz Araujo has been a trustee of Canning House since 2014 and chaired its board of trustees from 2018. Canning House was founded in London in November 1943 to build understanding and relationships between the United Kingdom, Latin America and Iberia, and it grew out of the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Councils established that year.
She is also a member of the United Nations Global Compact Transformational Governance Think Lab, which is linked to the UN Global Compact, an initiative encouraging businesses to align their strategies with universal principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. Her membership of the Supervisory Board of the Instituto Português de Corporate Governance connects her to a Portuguese body devoted to corporate governance. She is also a Fellow of the World Economic Forum, a Geneva-based foundation known for its annual meeting in Davos.
Trustee; chair of the board of trustees from 2018
Canning House
,
United Kingdom
2014
Member
UN Global Compact Transformational Governance Think Lab
Member of the Supervisory Board
Instituto Português de Corporate Governance
,
Portugal
Fellow
World Economic Forum
,
Switzerland
References
Beatriz Pessoa de Araujo, Agenda Contributor
World Economic Forum author profile summarising her education, her career at Baker & McKenzie from 1985 to 2023, and her admission as a solicitor in England and Wales in 1987.
Beatriz Araujo, Board Report
Professional profile describing her governance career, her head of corporate governance role at Baker & McKenzie, and her board and trustee activities.
7 Traits of Highly Successful Women on Boards
Book by Yvonne Thompson OBE that features the subject among highly successful women on boards.
