www.negociosnow.com
10 March 2023
Age: 31
Title: Finance Lead
Organization: AbbVie/President
of ALPFA
Erika Casillas grew up in the
Chicagoland suburbs along
with her two younger sisters.
Her parents migrated from the
Mexican states of Michoacan
and Guerrero in their early
teens. Casillas was the first in
her family to attend a four-year
university. After her graduation
from the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign in 2014
with a bachelor's degree in ac
-
countancy and in 2015 with a
master's degree in accountancy,
she began her career at Ernst &
Young within the financial ser-
vice office providing assurance,
and then moved to AbbVie.
Casillas currently works
within corporate finance at
AbbVie, doing financial plan-
ning and analysis and helping
her team accomplish key goals.
Additionally, Casillas works to
make an impact within AbbVie's
diversity and inclusion efforts
by serving on the Latinx em-
ployee resource group and with
campus recruiting efforts. As a
result, she was named equity,
diversity and inclusion cham-
pion on her team and shared
her experiences and impact
with others companywide.
Casillas is passionate about
giving back to her community.
She currently serves as presi-
dent for the Chicago chapter
of the Association of Latino
Professionals for America. In
this role she has focused on
empowering the Latinx com-
munity in Chicago and em-
powering small business ow-
ners. Casillas leads a board of
20 people, and together they
help students, professionals,
and the community overall.
Casillas led the Chicago ALPFA
chapter to be recognized at a
national level. Casillas was
also recognized as a 2022 Ri-
sing Star by ALPFA Nationals.
Casillas hopes to conti-
nue growing her career while
breaking barriers in corpora-
te America to make way for
the Latinx professionals who
will come after her.
Erika Casillas
"A
s we continue to trail blaze
the spaces that were
not made for us, let us not forget
to thank those who came before
us and continue to bring others
along with us.".
Increasing
diversity
in finance
