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Mexico and Minnesota are far apart in distance and culture: weather, food, last names are wildly different. Mara Garcia Kaplan now considers the move she made from Guadalajara to the Land of 10,000 Lakes as a child a blessing, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.
The senior vice president, senior lead counsel, and assistant corporate secretary for Wells Fargo has made as much of an impact as a corporate transactional lawyer as she has as a role model for Latinas hoping to see someone like them in the corporate ranks of a Fortune 500 company. She’s served in leadership positions from a young age, but before even those roles, Kaplan was a new student in a new place far unlike anywhere she had ever lived.
“I had never thought about my background until I moved to Minnesota, and suddenly I had all these people asking ‘what’ I was,” Kaplan explains. “They were questions I hadn’t ever been asked before. There were few non-Minnesota natives in my school and very few who spoke Spanish. I was an outsider, but that would wind up helping me grow.”
Kaplan says that while Minnesota’s winters are still tough to adjust to after coming from Guadalajara, having access to a different culture allowed her to learn how to build relationships across borders. Before moving to Minnesota, she studied abroad in the United Kingdom. Kaplan says studying abroad provided the foundation for a career that would see her managing counsel across the world.
Kaplan had leadership opportunities in her firm practice while many attorneys were still earning their stripes. Her skill at navigating cultural intricacies and business practices abroad were noticed early, and she was managing large-scale, cross-border transactions well ahead of her peers. It didn’t hurt that Kaplan worked as a banking executive before attending law school. She arrived at the firm world with a rare skill set and knowledge base that would help propel her career.
The attorney went in-house for Target in 2010 and eventually found her way to Wells Fargo in 2019. Along with her legal expertise, Kaplan’s resume is awash in additional time devoted to advancing representation for Latinos. Kaplan served as regional president of the Hispanic National Bar Association, as well as the president of the Minnesota Hispanic Bar Association.
At Target, Kaplan co-led the company’s Diversity and Inclusion Council, and since coming to Wells Fargo, the SVP has been an active member of the bank’s DEI Council. She’s also engaged with the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD), an organization that provides leadership development programs to diverse, high-potential, mid-career attorneys, and is an alum of leadership programs by the Hispanic Association of Corporate Responsibility (HACR) and Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT). As an advisory board member of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad, Kaplan had the unique opportunity to advise the Mexican government on how to better serve its citizens living abroad.
As a woman of color, Kaplan says she, fortunately, didn’t feel the overt sexism and racism that seem to still be such a part of so many female executives’ rise. Instead, she saw unconscious biases, which are sometimes manifested as microaggressions and hold women and people of color back.
“So much of what people of color and women experience now comes in microaggressions,” Kaplan says. “It’s these little moments and occurrences that happen every day that ultimately affect people. That’s why I’ve spent so much of my career trying to make sure we create a level playing field. I have been fortunate to have been part of organizations where the leaders are serious about it. We want to make sure everyone has access to the same opportunities.”
Kaplan’s ease in moving across cultures and environments has empowered her to be herself in every situation. Whether she is supporting the board of directors at Wells Fargo or leading its shareholder engagement program, Kaplan says she no longer worries about being exactly who she is.
“One thing I hope Latinas can know is that I spent many years trying to act like the non-diverse men around me,” the SVP says. “I tried to blend in, and I tried to act like I was part of the group. Once I started being more vocal and really offering my perspective, I realized it was a gift I could give. The value of a differing perspective to ultimately make a more informed decision.”
Kaplan urges younger readers to embrace what makes them unique. Those unique traits really are gifts. That’s advice coming from someone who has excelled in-house for some of the biggest companies in the world, and is wisdom from an outsider who learned that home can be anywhere if you’re true to yourself.
“Mara embraces challenges and new opportunities, having ramped up quickly on the complex area of annual meetings to diligently oversee the proxy statement and shareholder proposal process at Wells Fargo, and we are thrilled to see her recognized for her success!”
—Lori Zyskowski, Partner
