Our Leadership

Carlos Cabrera is CabLab´s Founder & Managing Director

Born in the Canary Islands, Spain, and educated at the local German School, he is a qualified Spanish lawyer with studies in Law and Public Affairs Management.

Carlos brings over 13 years of international experience in highly regulated sectors and multinational environments, with a strong specialization in FMCG, the Tobacco and Nicotine industries and Travel Retail. 

His career spans Legal, Regulatory and Corporate Affairs roles with global scope, leading projects in Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East markets.

A solid track record in highly-regulated industries

For nearly a decade, Carlos held senior Corporate Affairs and Legal roles at Imperial Brands (formerly Imperial Tobacco), serving as Corporate and Legal Affairs Manager within the company’s Global Travel Retail and Export cluster. 

His responsibilities combined Corporate and Regulatory Affairs, with a strong focus on the Asia Pacific Duty Free region, together with global legal support on contracts, litigation, and brand and product regulatory matters. He delivered business-oriented regulatory solutions and strategies covering areas such as packaging, ingredients, traceability and marketing restrictions.

Carlos led Legal & Advocacy projects and topics across a wide range of markets, including China, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, India, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and EU countries. 

He also represented the company in key industryand travel retail associations, and served for several years as Member of the Board (Director) of Imperial Brands Global Duty Free and Export SLU.

Prior to joining Imperial Brands’ Global Travel Retail cluster, Carlos worked in Corporate Affairs for Tabacalera’s Premium Cigars Division, overseeing EU Tobacco Products Directive implementation for the cigar category. 

His early career includes experience as an Attorney at the German law firm Rödl & Partner, and a junior EU Corporate Affairs role in Brussels at a leading Spanish bank, providing a strong foundation in both legal practice and public policy processes.

On a mission

Having spent most of his career in in-house roles in multinational companies, Carlos founded CabLab to offer companies the type of hands-on regulatory support that Legal and Corporate Affairs teams in highly regulated industries truly need. In his own words:

"After 10+ years inside Corporate & Legal Affairs teams of multinational companies in highly regulated industries, one thing became very clear:

In-house teams are not struggling because they lack external advice or budget for it, but because they are not fully served by the traditional offer (among other reasons).

What they don’t need is:
– an external counsel who ignores politics, stakeholder dynamics and business impact or a consultant who ignores legal reality
– more headcount without deep, senior sector expertise

They need integrated support that works at the pace of the business.

In-house teams do an incredible job holding everything together. There are true superheroes in there.
But regulatory complexity keeps increasing, while senior capacity cannot always scale as fast or as flexibly as the work demands.

So I decided to build, with humility, the service I always wished existed when I was in-company."