Laura Leal

Laura Leal joined the technical team of the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) in September 2022. She currently leads Work Stream 2 – Ethics Standards for Sustainability Assurance and Reporting of the Sustainability Task Force. She is also involved in the rollout project related to the revision of the definition of Public Interest Entities (PIE).

Before joining the IESBA, Ms. Leal was a legal advisor and the executive coordinator of the Regulatory Policy and International Affairs Department at the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM), where she participated in delineating the department’s annual strategy and objectives, helped manage the team, and was involved in the negotiation and drafting of policy documents and regulation in the context of capital markets and financial instruments. She was also part of the Portuguese delegation to the OECD Corporate Governance Committee and actively participated in the review of the G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance (completed in 2023), among other initiatives. Before that, Ms. Leal was a legal advisor at CMVM’s Audit Oversight Department, which she helped establish as the newly adopted law on audit regulation and supervision came into force. 

Ms. Leal started her career as a lawyer, focusing on corporate law, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, and capital markets. She has also lectured on the subject of corporate law. Ms. Leal holds a law degree from Universidade Catolica Portuguesa (Lisbon, Portugal) and a masters in corporate law from Universidade Catolica Portuguesa and Centro de Estudios Garrigues (Lisbon, Portugal / Madrid, Spain).