Maria Cortezón is a Senior Associate in the Industrial practice at Heidrick & Struggles, operating between Milan and Madrid. Since joining the firm in 2021, she has specialized in leading full-cycle executive search assignments for C-suite and senior leadership roles, often managing multi-country searches. Prior to her current role, Maria was a Research Associate at Egon Zehnder in Milan, where she focused on financial services and private equity mandates, delivering market mapping and candidate evaluations for C-suite and board appointments across Europe. Maria’s background is rooted in the legal profession, having served as a Foreign Legal Consultant at Pavia e Ansaldo for over five years, where she advised Spanish corporations on cross-border commercial and compliance matters. She also worked as a lawyer at Rucellai & Raffaelli, specializing in Intellectual Property and EU Law. Maria holds a Licenciatura en Derecho from Universitat Pompeu Fabra and a Master in International Relations from ASERI - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.