Photo of Gerónimo Gutiérrez Fernández

Gerónimo Gutiérrez Fernández

Gerónimo Gutiérrez Fernández, is a senior advisor at the firm. He provides strategic advice to businesses and governments on political risk, public affairs, communications, and business development. Gerónimo, a non-lawyer, has over 20 years of experience in senior government positions under five Mexican presidents in the areas of finance, trade, national security and diplomacy. Most recently, he served as Mexico’s Ambassador to the United States. In that position, he played a prominent role in the negotiation of the United States, Mexico and Canada Agreement (USMCA).

He previously served as Managing Director of the North American Development Bank (NADB), Deputy Secretary for Governance and Homeland Security, member of the National Security Council’s Executive Committee and, in the Foreign Ministry, as Under Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean and Under Secretary for North America. In the latter capacity, he coordinated day-to-day trilateral and bilateral affairs with the United States and Canada. He also led negotiations for the creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America (SPP) – prelude to the present day North American Leaders Summit. 

Gerónimo has also held other Mexican federal government positions in the Ministries of Economy and Treasury, the Office of the President, and Banobras.

In addition to his work with Covington, Gerónimo is the Managing Partner of BEEL Infrastructure, a specialized advisory and asset management firm focused on the infrastructure sector in Latin America. He serves in the Board of Directors of the United States – Mexico Business Association (AEM) and the Advisory Board of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute.

Gerónimo holds a B.A. degree in Economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), where he also completed the coursework for a B.A. degree in Political Science, and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, for which he received a Fulbright-García Robles Scholarship.

He has contributed with opinion articles for several newspapers and magazines in Mexico and the United States, and speaks regularly on Mexico’s political landscape and United States - Mexico affairs at conferences and other venues.

Since 2020, over 60 bills have been introduced in the Mexican Congress seeking to regulate artificial intelligence (AI). In the absence of general AI legal framework, these bills have sought to regulate a broad range of issues, including governance, education, intellectual property, and data protection. Mexico lacks a comprehensive national strategy or policy on AI. In April 2023, the Senate and civil society established the National Alliance for Artificial Intelligence (ANIA), a working group that developed standards and good practices to inform Mexico’s adoption of a national AI strategy. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) supported the group.

On February 19, 2025, Congressman Ricardo Monreal Ávila, head of the majority Morena parliamentary group, introduced a bill (in Spanish) to amend the Mexican Constitution, granting Congress authority to legislate on AI and adopt a General Law on the Use of AI. Similar to the U.S. system, the Mexican federal system requires that specific constitutional authority be granted to the federal congress to legislate on specific matters, and the states have residual authority. Without a clear delegation of authority, secondary AI legislation could be more easily challenged in the courts.Continue Reading New Artificial Intelligence Legislation in Mexico