Moneda Moves

Mi gente! Welcome back to a very special episode of Moneda Moves. It's no secret that this year has been a challenging one for Latino-centered companies and business owners. From shifting economic tides to political uncertainty, the landscape is testing us—but also pushing us to innovate and build smarter.As some of you may know, I had the honor of moderating a panel at SXSW all about the state of Latino startup hubs across the U.S.—and today, I'm thrilled to bring you that conversation as a live podcast episode!This panel was packed with real talk and insight from powerhouse women in business and investing. We explored what it really looks like to build in this moment: the challenges, the strategies, and the money moves Latinos are making as we continue to chase generational wealth.Yes, things feel uncertain right now. But uncertainty is also a call to strategize, not just survive. As a community, we can plan, pivot, and uplift one another.Here's one thing we do know: Latinos now hold the fifth-largest GDP in the U.S.—and Latinas are leading the charge in new business creation. The women on this panel are proof of what's possible, and I can't wait for you to hear their wisdom.Here's who joined us down in Austin in our LIVE podcast with our friends (who we did angel investing training with just last year!) at Inicio, impact-focused organization that supports and invests in early-stage Latino-led startups, working to close the capital gap and grow Latino entrepreneurship across the U.S:

Finding investment opportunities is a huge part of scaling small businesses into multimillion-dollar companies and Latino founders are more likely to seek external funding to scale their companies. In order to secure funding and scale their business, they need to know how to pitch themselves to investors that will take their businesses to the next level. That's exactly why this week's guest is an investing powerhouse with decades of experience growing small businesses and generating millions of dollars in revenue. Laura Maydon is the founder ofAscendo, a venture capital firm unlocking trillions of dollars of untapped opportunities nationwide that are currently overlooked. Ascendo invests in early-stage companies led by groundbreaking underrepresented founders who are using disruptive technologies that address the needs of growing demographic segments and that empower women, with a preference for Fintech, Edtech, Future of Work, Healthtech, and Enterprise Software. Before founding Ascendo, Laura founded Endeavor Miami in 2013, the first US affiliate of the global entrepreneurial organization, pioneering Miami's hub. During that time, Laura built a portfolio of more than 20 companies generating over $250 million in revenues, several with substantial exits. Prior to Endeavor, she held leadership positions at Visa and Panamco. Laura has strong Fintech, M&A, and PE backgrounds.Laura brings some pretty incredible statistics that remind us just how powerful our cohort truly is. She says that the US Latino economy is leading in growth and that itrepresents 3.6 trillion GDP. Which would be equivalent to the 5th largest global economy if it were its own country. There is so much economic power in the Latino community - that includes both their spending power and their entrepreneurial growth. And this week, Laura is teaching us how to harness that power. In this week's episode, we're learning all that we can from Laura's experience as a founder and investor who helped companies generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. We'll be diving into the entrepreneurial side of things including the specific challenges and opportunities that founders face in 2025, as well as emerging trends across sectors, and the rise of cross-border Latino businesses. Latino-owned businesses are seeing a remarkable amount of growth in the last few years and so we'll dive into how that will impact the global economy and what our audience can do to capitalize on that growth.Follow Laura on Instagram@Lmaydon and herwebsite.Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram:@MonedaMovesFollow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram:@LyanneAlfaroMain podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.Podcast production for this episode was provided by Sarah Tulloch and her podcast production company, CCST.

Pulse check, mi gente: How are we?  January was a very, very long month and came with multiple challenges for our community. And while these threats against ours and diverse communities across the board are flooding our newsfeeds, we must also seek and distribute resources that are available in these trying times. You can find information on immigrant rights here and updates on how the ACLU is responding here.  This is a marathon, not a sprint. We must believe we will get through this together. If you feel moved to, this is a great time to get involved in your local and extended communities also being directly impacted by executive orders. Feel free to tag @monedamoves in any helpful posts or link resources in our Substack comments.  We know that there is power in a community, especially at an economic level. Research shows that Latinos are the fastest-growing group of new business owners, we create new jobs with these businesses, and we have extremely strong purchasing power ($3.4 trillion to be exact). The broader Latino community and our smaller, more local communities have immense economic power that we can use to strengthen our communities.  But in order to access that economic power, we have to work together and we have to strategize. By working together, we can be the beneficiaries of our own economic strength. We can do that by focusing on our communities and putting money into our own communities. Small businesses have gone viral via online platforms, and not only gained social popularity, but have had economic success through their customers' support and by catering to the needs of their audience Latino-owned businesses offer real, tangible value to their consumers, but it can't do that if no one knows they exist and economic support.  This week's guest is ensuring the world knows about incredible Latino-owned businesses. Danny Miró-Chinea is a fellow advocate for the U.S. Latino community, dedicated to creating opportunities for our communities and celebrating Latino excellence through entrepreneurship, storytelling, and community building. As the founder of Comprende, Danny's platform is designed to uplift the U.S. Latino community by supporting Latino founders, amplifying their businesses, and sharing inspiring stories of impact. Comprende operates as a weekly newsletter and creative agency focused on the U.S. Latino demographic and is working on building a marketplace to connect consumers and companies with Latino-owned businesses. Through Comprende's creative agency, Danny has collaborated with startups like Suma Wealth, equipping Latinos with financial tools and resources as well as influential organizations like the Latino Donor Collaborative, shaping the narrative around Latino contributions. In this week's episode, I sit down with Danny to talk  about the role of community building and mentorship in entrepreneurial spaces, the impact of AI on budding Latino-owned businesses, and how building a business can be used as a vehicle to affect positive social change. Latinos have an impressive economic power, and today, Danny's going to teach us how to leverage that power as both a business owner and a consumer.  Follow Danny on Instagram @comprendelatino and his website. Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast production for this episode was provided by Sarah Tulloch and her podcast production company, CCST.

A warm welcome back to our Moneda visionaries. In the first week of the Trump administration, several actions have deeply impacted our community, particularly with heightened immigration enforcement and the removal of Spanish-language resources from the White House website. These moves, coupled with the threat of large-scale deportations, DEI order, and the dismantling of environmental justice programs disproportionately affect Latinos. At Moneda Moves, we understand the power of stories, and we are committed to reporting responsibly at the intersection of money and cultura, especially as it applies to our leading entrepreneurial population. The numbers don't lie: Latinos accounted for 36% of all new businesses in 2023, nearly double their 19% representation in the U.S. population. Immigrant Latinos are more than twice as likely to start a net new business compared to the U.S.-born population. The stories we tell matter, and more than ever, they will continue to shape our reality. That's why we started this platform—to ensure that the builders in our communities are seen and heard, especially when our contributions to the American economy and society for a long time went unrecognized in national headlines. Fundamentally, Moneda Moves believes in the inherent value of our community, as humans, but also in critical mass, and in our culture. This commitment remains steadfast.  In conversations with ecosystem builders who are working with underrepresented communities, it has been refreshing to know that we are not alone in this journey. A recent discussion reaffirmed the importance of staying informed, knowing our numbers which undeniably show the impact that we have together and how storytelling has the ability to create change. I highly recommend reading the 2023 State of Latino Entrepreneurship report by the Latino Business Action Network (LBAN) and Stanford Graduate School of Business.  The future is ours to shape, and we will continue to ensure that our stories are told with integrity and respect. This is why we are also joined today by Fernando Hurtado, a former manager of digital video for NBCUniversal Local and the host/producer of Bísness School. Bísness School is a podcast that highlights the stories of Latino-owned businesses and the fact that Latinos are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the United States. That series won a silver Signal Award in 2024. Fernando has recently launched The Hyphen, a YouTube channel that covers one of the fastest-growing demographics, U.S. Latinos, with deeply researched, visually rich stories.  Beyond podcasting at major networks, Fernando was the lead producer on NBC's My New Favorite Olympian podcast, which was named best sports podcast at the Cynopsis Sports Media Awards.  He's expanded his coverage in this arena to the Paris, Tokyo, and Beijing Olympics for NBCUniversal Local. Hurtado was named to Broadcasting + Cable's 40 Under 40 in 2023. Prior to NBC, Fernando was at ATTN: and Sinclair Broadcast Group as a producer and editor. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles. He is currently an adjunct instructor of visual journalism and multiplatform Olympic and Paralympic storytelling there.  This journalist's mission is to highlight Latino-owned businesses in English in order to reach younger bilingual audiences who are looking for positive representation in entrepreneurial spaces. In his effort to do so, he has produced over 20 episodes with successful Latino entrepreneurs, including Annie Leal, the owner of the $4M business, I Love Chamoy. It is no surprise that while living in Los Angeles, Fernando, like myself hails from Chicago, which is heavily influenced by Latino-run businesses, in neighborhoods from La Villita to Pilsen and Humboldt Park. In addition to raising awareness about these businesses, he's also sharing what's working for them and what challenges they are facing in the entrepreneurial space so that other Latino entrepreneurs can learn from their stories. This week, Fernando shares how Latino entrepreneurs are using their stories to better market their products, why Latino businesses are seen as too niche or exclusive to other communities, and what trends he's seeing in 2025.  Follow Fernando on Instagram @byfernandoh and his website. Follow the The Hyphen podcast on YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.  Follow the Bísness School podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts.  Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast production for this episode was provided by Sarah Tulloch and her podcast production company, CCST.

Welcome back, Moneda Moves community. Following an eventful start to this week in news, we have another amazing journalist on the podcast, Cora Cervantes, who spoke with Latinos all last year leading up to the election which landed Trump in office. She's here to share what she heard on the ground from Latinos, many of who are business owners, and their biggest concerns they want to see addressed – inclusive of economic issues.  And before we dive in, we would be remiss to not acknowledge the way our Latino communities (plural) will be disproportionately targeted ahead of mass deportations set to start this week. As a platform that stands behind first builders, rewriting our narratives that exemplify our collective force, and tools for empowerment – we acknowledge how damaging the combination of rhetoric and actions on behalf of the new administration can and will be. During this time, we will be leaning into our personal community on the ground. We've also found Eliza Orlins, New York City public defender, and her explainers particularly helpful as of late. As you know, this season we're focusing on 2025 economic trends, how they affect our entrepreneurial community, and how our community will move the American economy. We have a memorable lineup for you and can't wait to share the information and resources we're producing this season. As many of us know, 2024 was a tough year for small businesses. Average revenue was up, but so were expenses, according to Biz2Credit. Breaking down the numbers and net-net, profits were down: average monthly earnings for small businesses in the first 11 months of 2024 was about $86,000 - more than $60,000 lower than in 2023. Some entrepreneurs found themselves in the red in some cases, as this week's guest independent journalist Cora reported. When interviewing working-class Latinos about their businesses in 2024, she found that people were struggling to keep up with the current economic climate, let alone improve their economic standing. It can also explain why Latinos voted with the economy among their top concerns. This week's guest, Cora, is an independent journalist based in Los Angeles. She covers politics, immigration, climate change, and race and culture with an equity lens. She has a network television and cable news production background at NBC News and MSNBC. She has produced digital stories for multimedia outlets, including NBC News, Al-Jazeera, Latino USA, palabra, High Country News, and Narratively. Cora is a graduate of Columbia University and holds a Master's degree from New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She currently serves as a board member of NAHJ's Los Angeles Chapter. Cora spent much of 2024 speaking with working-class Latinos about their businesses and how they perceive the economic environment in the United States. Small business owners are holding out hope that the economy will improve. But with the rising cost of goods eating away at their profits, they're eager for change. As a result, in the 2024 election, several sources she spoke with voted with the hope that the new president would improve the economy and protect their businesses. In this week's episode, we sit down with Cora to talk about what she learned while covering Latino business owners and their votes, as well as the coverage we can expect to see more of within the Latino community in 2025. We're discussing everything from why some Latinos voted the way they did to how stricter immigration policies could affect our day-to-day lives. The Latino community is incredibly diverse, and our reasons for what we do and who we vote for are layered. By having boots on the ground via journalists who speak with working-class business owners, we gain a better understanding of what they're experiencing and why. No te lo quieres perder. Follow Cora on Instagram: @cora_cervantes Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast production for this episode was provided by Sarah Tulloch and her podcast production company, CCST.

Mi gente, the first season of Moneda Moves is ready for launch! Thank you for joining us in the new year and our 180th installment of our Moneda Moves notitas. This season, we're focusing on 2025 economic trends, how they affect our entrepreneurial community, and our community will move the American economy. You can expect to hear from some incredible experts this season, including investors and national journalists—starting with this week's guest. It is more important than ever to pay mind to how Latinos are contributing to the economy—especially Latinos in the growing gig economy. Did you know that two in five Americans are part of the gig economy? For Latinos, an impressive 50 percent identify as independent workers, as shared by the Independent Women's Forum. In kind, this week, we're exploring how we tap into all that joint economic power we yield as well as the ins and outs of the growing gig economy. Our guest is the award-winning journalist, educator, and host Tanzina Vega. Tanzina has led coverage of inequality at some of the world's most influential organizations, including The Boston Globe, The New York Times, CNN, and New York Public Radio. In my eyes, Tanzina's news coverage is the blueprint for reporting on money and race in the United States, as well as on money and inequality overall. The gig economy is growing, and Latinos are increasingly participating in it, whether it's on its own or in addition to a 9-to-5 job..s. Freelancing has its perks—you can work from home, set your own hours, and be your own boss. But it's not the kind of work we were traditionally encouraged to pursue or the same rules that apply. In our conversation with Tanzina, we discover that the shift toward the gig economy may have been born out of necessity. We also discuss how critical it is for Latinos to know their contracts, what to watch out for, and how to advocate for their terms and worth. This week, we'll discuss how Latinos can tap into collective potential and how to navigate the gig economy. While freelancing can create new economic opportunities, it's important to learn from established professionals like Tanzina, who have covered and experienced the gig economy firsthand. When new freelancers lack the knowledge to navigate contracts and negotiations, they could end up with predatory terms and unreasonable conditions. But with the right resources and advocating for their worth we can leverage the gig economy to continue to wealth build. No te lo quieres perder. Follow Tanzina on Instagram: @tanzinavega Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast production for this episode was provided by Sarah Tulloch and her podcast production company, CCST.

Can you believe it? We have arrived at the last installment of 2024 with Moneda Moves, and thank you for joining us this year! Throughout this season, we continued to cover top Latino entrepreneurs and leaders in the space looking to close capital gaps in our ecosystem, starting with my hometown, Chicago, the wider Midwest, and beyond. This week, we're coming back to our roots and talking about how Latino culture is influencing purchasing power. Little Village, a neighborhood in the southwest side of Chicago, is named the "Mexico of the Midwest" and generates over $900 million annually through its Latino-owned businesses. People come from all over the U.S. to experience the very specific type of nostalgia they can usually only find in Mexico. My immigrant parents sure did as I was growing up. It was here where we could find the botanica with medicinal herbs we were looking for or specific ingredients for a dinner with a taste of the motherland on Sunday afternoons. Customers come for the food, the street vendors, and the experience of feeling at home in a familiar place. This kind of success has the potential to be a blueprint for Latino communities all over the U.S., and this week's guest is sharing how we can both protect this wealth and strengthen it. Jennifer Aguilar is the Executive Director of the Little Village Chamber of Commerce, where she leads the mission to foster the growth and prosperity of businesses in Little Village while harnessing the community's rich cultural heritage to create fresh opportunities. In her role, Jennifer orchestrates the comprehensive planning, coordination, and execution of all facets of the Little Village Chamber of Commerce and Little Village Special Service Area #25. This includes staff management, operations, programs, projects, and services. With over a decade of experience, Jennifer has excelled in safeguarding corporate brand image and reputation through adept management of public and private stakeholder relationships. Authenticity is at the heart of Little Village's success. With traditional street vendors, quinceañeras, and over 100 restaurants, the corridor's success comes from knowing what its customers want. That includes products that are not only culturally comforting but also good for them. During her time at Nostro Queso, Jennifer found that customers prefer to buy organic, preservative-free products and are willing to pay higher prices for products in places like Little Village than they would in chain grocery stores. She says that customers who come to shop at Little Village would rather pay for traditionally made products than anything else. But when towns like Little Village become popular, large corporations often move in, which can negatively affect the community when not done responsibly. In this week's episode, Jen talks about what's going well in Little Village's economy and what we can do to protect it. $900 million is just the beginning. There is so much more that the people of Little Village can accomplish if given the opportunity. To make sure they do get that opportunity, Jen is working with the community to ensure they have the chance to own their spaces, limit the negative side effects of gentrification, and thrive in this generation and the next. No te lo quieres perder. Follow Jen on Instagram: @jenmydear @littlevillagechamber  Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast production for this episode was provided by Sarah Tulloch and her podcast production company, CCST.

What's up, Moneda Moves community? No one should be left behind in our mission to achieve equal pay, even for Latinas. Yet, in 2024, the Latina pay gap widened for the first time in 20 years. That's impacting Latinas across the board and in most disparate ways our caregivers, mothers, farmworkers, and people working in hospitality. My time reporting out of NYC reminds me of a time when I covered farmworkers and activists marching 200 miles to Albany to demand basic workers' rights, including collective bargaining, workers' compensation, and unemployment benefits. This was finally granted in 2019 via the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act. This week's guest is Mónica Ramírez, an attorney, author, and activist. She is the founder of Justice for Migrant Women and co-founder of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, The Latinx House, and Poderistas. Mónica has received numerous awards, including Harvard Kennedy School's first Gender Equity Changemaker Award, Feminist Majority's Global Women's Rights Award, and the Smithsonian's 2018 Ingenuity Award. She was named to Forbes Mexico's 100 Most Powerful Women's 2018 list, TIME Magazine's TIME100 Next list in 2021, and the Association of Latino Professionals for America's (ALPFA) Most Powerful Latinas list for 2024. Now more than ever, it's so important to be aware of the inequities our communities face at all levels and to call them out. If we are ever going to see the equal pay we deserve, we need to bring marginalized workers on this journey with us. That includes the farmworkers, janitors, and caretakers. At Moneda Moves, we applaud how our community is building generational wealth through entrepreneurship, leading companies, and career progression. But in our interview with Mónica, we discuss how the best way to move forward as a community and to close the wage gap is to respect individuals across industries that power our society in search of equity. There is no room for disparaging the same jobs that gave the next generation a leg up in the first place. In this week's episode, Mónica highlights why the pay gap is widening and what we can do to fix it. The fight for equal pay is a long road ahead, but we can start within our own communities. Latinas are making on average 51 cents on the dollar compared to our white, non-Hispanic colleagues. This pay gap is affecting Latinas in white-collar jobs and blue-collar alike. We have a lot of work to do to fix this, and Mónica is here to teach us how. No te lo quieres perder. Follow Mónica on Instagram: @activistmonicaramirez  Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast production for this episode was provided by Sarah Tulloch and her podcast production company, CCST.

Que tal, Moneda Moves community? As both an employee and an entrepreneur in the financial industry, Juan knows just about everything there is to know about a business's finances. He knew exactly what founders would need from a financial program like Lazo in order to grow their businesses, so he built it! Juan created a company that empowers Latino business owners through their finances and ensures they can scale their businesses. Juan Manuel Barrero, a three-time entrepreneur, hails from Trenque Lauquen, a small town in Argentina, where he grew up in an accounting family business. Now based in Miami, he is building Lazo, a venture enabling him to make a significant social impact and transform his lifelong industry. His efforts benefit countless entrepreneurs while revolutionizing the sector. Driven by the desire to create a substantial social impact, Juan aims to innovate and disrupt the CFO and legal tech SaaS industry. He recognizes the potential of AI, automation, and standardization in building scalable products. As the CEO of Lazo, he founded and leads the top gateway for Latin American startups in the U.S. Through partnerships with early-stage startups, Juan helps structure their data and provides a comprehensive VC-ready SaaS solution to address their finance, tax, legal, and investor relations needs. Finances have always been a huge part of Juan's life. His father was a CPA in a small town in Argentina, and he has been helping his father with the family business since he was a kid. As an adult, he also became a CPA and worked for major corporations for five years before becoming an entrepreneur and creating his own business, just like his father. His dad even became his first partner! It's because of his experience in leadership positions and his community of Latinos in the financial industry that he created a program to give back to his community. It hasn't always been easy! From discovering his company was not sustainable to receiving hundreds of “no's” from investors, he has experienced all the highs and lows of being a founder. He's had to let go of businesses he wasn't truly aligned with and find his true purpose before creating Lazo. Now, after years of recalibrating and redefining his purpose, Lazo is the number one pick for Latin American startups. No te lo quieres perder. Follow Juan on Instagram: @joinLazo Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast production for this episode was provided by Sarah Tulloch and her podcast production company, CCST.

Welcome back to another installment of Moneda Moves mi gente! Diana Hernandez Wayne wants you to live your life intentionally; otherwise, what's the point? I first met her at L'Attitude, the annual conference hosted by the $100 million fund (LAT VC) investing in Latino businesses.  Diana is an absolute force, and I am so excited to have her on the show. She is a wealth of knowledge and feels like she's lived a thousand lives! Diana learned early in her career that she would rather live an intentional life than a stagnant one. To do that, she had to learn how to let go of her scarcity mindset. Diana Hernandez is an executive coach and consultant who advises corporate clients, venture funds, and founders on scaling their businesses. Diana has experience moderating and leading career advancement workshops and uses neuroscience-based practices to drive change.  Before executive coaching, she spent her career in consumer brands, working for Fortune 500 companies, including Clorox, Brita, and Method Products. She has experience in P&L management and cross-functional roles in finance, sales, marketing, and e-commerce, with expertise in launching and growing multimillion-dollar brands with major national retailers. Living intentionally comes at a cost. To live the life we want, we have to let go of our fears.  So many of us stay exactly where we are because we are afraid of failure. The fear of failure almost kept Diana in a financial reporting job she wasn't aligned with. Once she overcame that fear and requested to switch departments, more opportunities opened up for her. In this week's episode, Diana shares the most important lessons she has learned from her years of personal and professional experience. Climbing the corporate ladder has never been easy, especially when she's usually the only Latina in the room. She was frustrated with her career path but was afraid that pivoting meant quitting. Once she faced the grief of losing two sisters in one year, Diana knew she had to live her life intentionally. She needed to take control of her life and make her decisions from an empowered place and not from limiting beliefs.  It wasn't until she left the finance department for the sales department, and then the marketing department, that she began to align with her true purpose. Diana learned that she had to let go of her scarcity mindset and embrace her power. After years of honing her skills, Diana is teaching corporate leaders how to embrace their power, build their brands, and live intentionally. No te lo quieres perder. Follow Diana on TikTok and Instagram: @dianalives  Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast production for this episode was provided by Sarah Tulloch and her podcast production company, CCST.

This week, we're highlighting a cross-border trailblazer who is dedicated to bringing financial news in context for Spanish speakers in the United States. Our guest, Enrique Castro, is dedicated to bridging the financial education gap he's noticed in Latino populations by sharing the knowledge he's learned firsthand and creating a connection to current affairs. Each week, Enrique empowers his audience by sharing the latest financial news that impacts their families' economies. He also shares inspiring stories of Hispanics in the United States who are transforming and strengthening the community. By advocating for his community on a local level and an international level, he is bringing financial literacy to those who need it most.  Enrique Castro is an economist, podcaster, and Director of Membership and Corporate Relations for the Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. As a Director, a role he accepted earlier this year (congratulations Enrique!) he uses his position to support Latino businesses in the Greater Austin area. His experience as a multi-hyphenate business owner has helped him understand the challenges of the needs of other small businesses. As host of the Economics and Finance podcast Taco Financiero, he is focused on documenting the Latino community here in the United States and speaking to how current affairs impact this community.  Before moving to the US, Enrique was born and raised in South Mexico where he studied economics at ITAM (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México) and developed economic development policy experience while serving at the Mexican government. Many external factors affect our personal finances - including upcoming elections, the cost of living, and the rate of inflation. But not everyone knows how to make sense of these external factors in the context of their everyday finances. This is why Enrique has made it his mission to educate the Latino community and let us know exactly what we should expect.  In this week's episode, we'll talk about his experience working as an economist and an entrepreneur, his story of how he immigrated to the U.S., the macro trends that he's watching this year, and how the election may impact entrepreneurs.  No te lo quieres perder. Follow Taco Financiero on TikTok and Instagram: @tacofinanciero Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast production for this episode was provided by Sarah Tulloch and her podcast production company, CCST.

Today we are honoring the Midwest by shining a light on Samara Hernandez, the Founding Partner of Chingona Ventures. Samara and her team are the perfect examples of the incredible talent living in our hometown of Chicago. Chingona Ventures is an institutionally backed pre-seed stage fund focusing on investing in tech and tech-enabled companies across the U.S. The fund has $60MM in AUM and has made more than 40 investments across technology sectors in Financial, Food, Future of Work and Learning, and Health/Wellness.  Samara is on the advisory boards for Coolwater, an organization to support the emerging manager community; Angeles Investors, an organization investing in early-stage startups led by Latinx founders; and Venture Forward, a non-profit working to get more diversity in the venture capital ecosystem. She started her career at Goldman Sachs where she continually ranked in the top five for selling financial products, providing market insights, advising on portfolio construction, and consulting business practices. From there, she became an investor at Math Venture Partners across two funds where she led investment review, diligence, and execution. While the Midwest can be overlooked by investors, we have a lot of hustle over here and with Samara's help, business owners with marginalized backgrounds are starting to get the funding they need to do great things. This is especially important as founders with minority backgrounds find it hard to get funding. In this week's episode, Samara shares how her path to investing was a reaction to her environment. As a result, Chingona Ventures focuses on industries that are massively changing and founders whose backgrounds uniquely position them to create businesses in growth markets that are often overlooked. She and her team focus on areas in financial technology, the future of work, the future of learning, food technology, and health/wellness. Chingona Ventures invests in founders with a racial or ethnic minority with both cold and warm intros. She and her team have reviewed over 7,000 cold and warm inbound submissions, averaging five to six deals reviewed per day, at the time, invested in more than 40 different companies. That is such a high volume for such a lean team! No te lo quires perder. Follow Chingona Ventures on TikTok and Instagram: @chingonaventures Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound. Podcast production for this episode was provided by Sarah Tulloch and her podcast production company, CCST.

What do Black and Latino entrepreneurs look like, uninterrupted? That's the question, Felecia Hatcher, CEO of Pharrell William's Black Ambition Opportunity Fund, has for the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Hatcher is a White House Award-Winning Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker and Author. The Fund, which she leads, invests in diverse entrepreneurs with capital, mentorship and uninterrupted access to resources and opportunities. There is nothing she can't do. In the last three years, the Fund has invested in more than 100 Black and Latino-led companies, all which have gone to raise more than $95 million. Today we are speaking with Felecia about the capital gaps for Black and Latino entrepreneurs, the big opportunity that comes with investing in POC communities and her own journey as business owners from owning a gourmet popsicle company with her partner to becoming CEO of Black Ambition. No te lo quires perder.

You were just hearing from Laura Moreno Lucas, a Latina entrepreneur, about the purpose behind her latest initiative Libra Leaders (https://libraleaders.com/). It's a new platform with a collective $1.2B in investment capital setting out to help founders “scale the capital ladder,” by providing access to a network of influential women at every level of the capital markets, growth opportunities, and the big unlock for the Latino cohort: capital. Her founding team including Carolina Bradili and Anastasia Martinez sets out to build a wholistic ecosystem to uplift the next generation of unicorns. But prior to Libra Leaders, Laura had a history of working in the space from being an entrepreneur at an exiting company, to board member at bath and body brand Nopalera to being a general partner in venture. Before then, we had a pleasure of working together at Nasdaq, the stock exchange, where she was managing director for new listings and capital market. Today, we speak about the new endeavor to uplift women entrepreneurs, and learnings in her career as one of the few Latinas to rise through the ranks in capital markets. No te lo quires perder. Notes: This podcast was recorded during Women's History Month in the lead up to Libra Leaders' launch which was reported separately via Forbes. Find it here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lyannealfaro/2024/03/08/this-platform-with-a-12b-investment-capital-helps-close-the-latina-founder-investing-gap/?sh=10d90ac55abe Our podcast host cited that fewer than 12 POC-owned companies had listed on NYSE. Our research suggests that the stat may be even slightly more striking. A recent Marketplace interview in fact cites that “There have only been about 12 ever in all stock exchanges that are minority-owned and controlled companies to reach a stock exchange.”  Find the interview with Dream Exchange here: https://www.marketplace.org/2023/06/27/first-minority-owned-public-stock-exchange-looks-to-make-its-debut/  Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Welcome to the 2024 season of Moneda Moves mi gente. This year, we are speaking with leaders in the Latino entrepreneurship ecosystem who are paving the way.  And among them is Rocio van Nierop is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Latinas in Tech. For more than 15 years, she has been working in the tech industry and is and advocating for Latinx diversity and inclusion. Today, Latinas in Tech consists of almost 30,000 women working at more than 100 of the top technology companies worldwide. As We All Grow cites, she now works with lawmakers at the city, state, and federal levels to help change the system from outside the tech ecosystem. So I saw it fitting to ask her about her take on DEI in this year, a year where diversity equity and inclusion is being challenged by the right. No te lo quieres perder. Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

On the final episode of Moneda Moves for 2023, we are speaking with Isabel Casillas Guzman, the 27th Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.  "Everyone is trying to figure out how to target the Latino market," she says. "(Latinos) have an advantage in knowing what the needs and the wants are of this community at scale." When it comes to speaking about accessing the Latino purchasing power, she's absolutely right. Most want a piece Latino market, and it's a matter of how they can get to it. It's the $3.4 trillion question — that's our purchasing power, according to the Latino Donor Collaborative. For this reason among many others, major brands from Netflix to Walmart to Target want to access Latinos. We're growing and here to stay. And while we have all this purchasing power, one of the big issues we face as prominent business owners is access to capital. Earlier this year,  we learned that the agency topped $3 billion in SBA-backed loans to Latino-owned small businesses, increasing more than 30% since 2017 (nearly double since 2020).  In today's interview, we discuss how the SBA is helping get Latino business owners access to loans, how we tap into our own purchasing power and how the Supreme's Courts ruling on affirmative action will impact small business owners. We also explore how the SBA responded when the ruling impacted a program of its own, helping nearly 5,000 disadvantaged small businesses secure coveted government contracts. Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Today we speak with Hector Saldivar, Founder and CEO of Tia Lupita Foods, a better for you, healthy Mexican-inspired food brand that uses clean and simple ingredients in all their products. His journey started with his mom's salsa recipe, which he wanted to package to share with the world. Tia Lupita Foods has expanded beyond salsas and is in the business of selling tortillas, grain-free chips and much more. A little more about Hector's unique journey: Hector moved to the USA in 2005 as a territory sales manager for a Mexican startup and moved up the ranks through the years working at companies like Nestle USA and Diamond Foods. Hector was an integral part of the Pop Secret Microwave popcorn leadership team that overtook Orville Redenbacher's spot to become the number one selling microwave popcorn in the USA. Tia Lupita today is the first brand to introduce Nopales Cactus as an alternative, functional and sustainable ingredient in the USA market. Tia Lupita Foods is a Foodbytes by Rabobank Judges Choice winner, Natural Products Expo West Pitch Slam Winner and a Naturally Bay Area inaugural pitch slam runner up. Hector has also been recognized by TIME Magazine as one of 80 Mexicans that are helping shape contemporary culture. Today, we speak with Hector about the origin story behind Tia Lupita, bootstrapping and funding the future of his company. Follow Tia Lupita Foods on Instagram: @tialupitafoods Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Pinole Blue started out of a dorm room while Eddie Sandoval was studying business at Wichita State University. His family is from Chihuahua, Mexico. Growing up, he would take trips twice a year to visit and bring home pinole, a multiuse, nutrient-dense mixture of roasted ground maize savored by his family for generations. He realized his family wasn't the only one that missed having easy access to pinole but even American endurance athletes. Pinole is popular among the Tarahumara tribe of Chihuahua, who would drink it for energy before running long distances and have gained a spotlight for winning ultramarathons all over the world. An entrepreneur at heart, Eddie bought half a ton of raw heirloom blue corn in Mexico and drove back from the border to start production in his parents garage. That spring semester of 2017, his dorm room at the time became the distribution center and headquarters, where other blends were developed. After graduating from Wichita State and winning the new venture competition, Eddie pursued Pinole Blue full time. Today, makes different pinole drink mixes, protein mixes, cookies and stone ground tortillas all from organic blue corn while donating back to the Tarahumara community, where it's often used. The company has been featured in major outlets including Buzzfeed, Remezcla and Shark Tank Season 13. It has a strong social media presence with more than 380,000 fans on TikTok. We speak with the founder and CEO of Pinole Blue, Eddie Sandoval, about how he learned about pinole, the importance of his storytelling on social media and his very unique bootstrapping approach to his business. Follow Pinole Blue on TikTok and Instagram: @pinoleblue Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Keith Alaniz is in the business of doing good and doing well. He is one of the founders and CEO of Rumi Spice, a social enterprise that promotes peace in Afghanistan by connecting farmers with markets and empowering Afghan women. Keith's military service in Afghanistan inspired him to start Rumi Spice in 2014, which has since become an award-winning company known for its high quality spices and its commitment to fostering peace through business. In addition to his military service, Keith has an impressive educational background. He received his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University and a Master's degree in Engineering Management from the Missouri University of Science and Technology. He later attended the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he earned his MBA and was recognized as the top entrepreneur for the 2018 class. Keith also worked for three years at Google as a program manager for the technical infrastructure supply chain team. We speak with Keith about how his time in Afghanistan led to the creation of Rumi Spice, how the company bootstrapped and how it actively works to benefit Afghan farmers while running a profitable business. Follow Rumi Spice online: https://www.rumispice.com/ Follow Rumi Spice on Instagram: @rumi_spice Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

When Miguel Leal saw American shelves representing Mexican food, he noted there was a big opportunity to create this offering: a CPG company that is both culturally-relevant and convenient. Enter SOMOS Foods, which makes Mexican food with authentic recipes and plant-based, Non-GMO ingredients. Tacos, tostadas, nachos and chilaquiles are all ready in ten minutes. His experience in building successful food brands is extensive. He previously helped accelerate growth at KIND Snacks, where he served as Executive Vice President Marketing for three years. There, he first connected with SOMOS co-founders Daniel Lubetzky and Rodrigo Zuloaga.  He is a Mexican-American food industry veteran who comes to SOMOS following two years as the Chief Marketing Officer at Cholula. Before then, he was at Danone and Diamond Foods working on the Kettle brand. His food career began at PepsiCo's Frito-Lay managing the Lay's potato chip category for nearly three years. Miguel moved to the United States to receive his MBA from The Wharton School at UPenn. A fun fact: Born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico, Miguel's favorite Mexican meal is home-cooked picadillo with rice and beans.  Follow SOMOS Foods on Instagram: @eatsomos Find SOMOS Foods online: https://eatsomos.com/ Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

From being inexperienced to making yourself capable. I love the snippet from Regina Trillo, Founder and CEO, Nemi Snacks. Nemi Snacks are crunchy sticks made from seeds and nopales (a.k.a. prickly pear cactus) in Mexican-inspired flavors like Mexican Lime, Smoky Chipotle, Chile Turmeric and Churro. Originally from Mexico City and now based in Chicago, Regina felt unrepresented the moment she stepped foot in Chicago grocery stores. Regina found well-established brands portraying Mexican cultura in a stereotypical way, brands that were unlikely to upgrade their ingredient list and innovate in the marketplace.  Nemi Snacks was founded with a mission to elevate Mexican cultura in the U.S. through high-quality Mexican snacks in sombrero-free branding. Nemi works directly with Mexican farmers, uses real chiles and spices and no artificial colors or ingredients. Regina has spent her legal career advocating for human rights by providing legal services to immigrants and implementing programs on a range of global human rights issues in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and the United States. I'm so excited to share the interview with you today. This is Regina Trillo, Founder and CEO of Nemi Snacks. Find Nemi Snacks Online: https://neminative.com/ Follow Nemi Snacks on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nemisnacks/ Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Welcome back to another season of Moneda Moves mi gente. This season we are talking about food: It makes the world go round. Some might say food is everything we are: An extension of our regions, our tribes, to paraphrase the late chef and journalist Anthony Bourdain. But it's also an interesting business opportunity. Last year, venture capitalists invested more than $20 billion in this space even after economic conditions had tightened. And as we know on this podcast, Latinos (alongside people of color) are among the biggest creators of business in this country. Throughout this season, Moneda Moves is bringing funders investing in the future of food and founders paving the way for intimate conversations on how they invest, fundraise and build truly scalable companies. Our panel today is from our first live event in Chicago, where we have founders from the consumer packaged goods space to the food tech space. On the mics we have Perteet Spencer, Founder of AYO Foods, who launched the company to celebrate ingredients, flavors and culture of West African diaspora. We also have Michelle Ruiz, founder of food tech company Hyfe, who brings more than ten years of manufacturing experience from the likes of Exxon Mobile. Also joining us is Shayna Harris, managing partner of Supply Change Capital, investing in early stage, high growth food tech businesses and culture-first brands. Shayna has more than two decades of experience as a food industry leader and operator. She and her co-founder Noramay Cadena just closed a $40 million fund. Congratulations! A trifecta of women that are joining us in our conversation today to talk about what the future of food looks like, from both a funding and scalability perspective. Finally, a shout to our collaborators who helped put on our first live podcast event, DishRoulette Kitchen, a nonprofit working to provide funding and education for BIPOC restarateurs across Chicago, and Industrious where the event was hosted. Let's dive in. Welcome to Funding the Future of Food.  Follow Supply Change Capital On Instagram: @supplychangecapital Follow AYO Foods On Instagram: @ayofoods Follow Hyfe On Instagram: @hyfejefe Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

It's the last episode of the first season of 2023 and I couldn't think of a better topic to close this season about multi-hyphenates than with an episode on storytelling. If you've listened to this podcast before, you know I've spoken about this: The power of storytelling. It has the power to shape reality, attract and grow our businesses. Today, we are speaking with an expert in the industry on the PR side: that's Karina Martinez, founder of The Avana House. It's a public relations and storytelling agency founded to reshape media narratives through storytelling. In 2018, Martinez opened the doors to the agency with the intention to celebrate leaders, flavors and brands that represent what our diverse BIPOC communities look like. The name Avana is an homage to Havana, Cuba where Martinez's parents were born. In just a few years The Avana House led storytelling for some of the fastest-growing emerging brands and created moments in publications like The Today Show, Food & Wine, and The New York Times. Today, we speak with Martinez about her calling to increase representation and authentic stories in media, leveraging data to do so and how her unique journey into PR has defined the way she runs her business and built her team.  Follow Karina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karina-martinez-001/ Follow The Avana House on Instagram: @TheAvanaHouse Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

For Rachel Basoco, community building has opened doors to a wide range of industries from lifestyle, to entrepreneurship, and as of late the world of finance and of Paris Hilton. In a world where building trust is priceless for public figures and companies alike, it pays to have an engaged community when platforms have established a relationship with them. It's Basoco's job to help build that through community. Today, she is a multi-hyphenate at her core as Director of Digital Communities Advancement and Growth at Fidelity Investments, Web3 Community Manager at Paris Hilton's company 11:11 Media and founder of Rachel Basoco LLC. Through her own company, her clients have included  self-funded start-ups, Fortune 500 giants, and tech unicorns. She helps each partner craft and execute a community strategy that enables them to acquire customers faster and retain them longer.  Today we speak with Rachel about her entry into community building via building her own company in New York City to expand the space Latina creatives fill, Trenza. We also talk about how she built community at one one the City's staple coworking spaces for women entrepreneurs, Luminary. Rachel also shares her priorities in community building today, from the world of finance to influencers. Follow Rachel Basoco on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelbasoco Follow Rachel on Instagram: @RachelBasoco Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Marcia Chong Rosado (she/her/ella) faces multidimensionality head on. She holds multiple identities within her work, but also in her personal life as she's navigated cultures across continents, socioeconomic spaces, and industries. Her goal? To bridge venture and civic engagement worlds.  Personally, Marcia operates within and outside of evolving labels, including identifying as multiracial from diverse ancestors, Ecuadorian, as an immigrant to the United States. Today, she is a Director at Cinematica Labs, focused on building mission-oriented entrepreneurial ecosystems in partnerships with ecosystem builders, like Pharrell Williams' Black Ambition. Marcia is a Coach with the National Science Foundation's Convergence Accelerator program uplifting teams of scientists addressing national-scale societal challenges. She is also involved in civic engagement as a Commissioner on the Worcester County Commission on the Status of Women to promote rights and opportunities for women and girls, and as an Advisory Board Member for the Commonwealth Seminar, a privately funded program focused on “Opening the Doors of Government to Everyone”. Marcia's work in venture ecosystem building, startups, nonprofits, and partnerships has been noted by Amplify Latinx, HBCUvc 31 under 31, Boston Business Journal, Harvard Law & Policy Review, and Forbes. We speak with Marcia about the navigating identity, community and venture ecosystem building in the startups ecosystem and what an equitable future looks like. Take a listen. Connect with Marcia Chong Rosado on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marciaxchong/ And on Instagram: @marciaxchong Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

If there is anyone who knows the ins and outs of building a team for success, whether it's in entrepreneurship or venture capital it's Rachel ten Brink. Today she's General Partner and co-Founder of Red Bike Capital, a Latino and woman-led Venture Capital fund based in New York that invests in early stage, high-growth startups that drive the economy and improve people's lives. Red Bike supports US-based founders in FinTech, Ecommerce SAAS, Marketplaces, and Wellness, leveraging the team's 30+ years of experience with an authentic connection to the startup ecosystem and a strong track record in asset management. And just earlier this year it closed equity investment from Bank of America, which we discuss at the top of this podcast. Prior to founding Red Bike Capital, ten Brink was Co-Founder and CMO of Scentbird, a Y-Combinator backed ecommerce startup that raised $29M in venture funding. Today, it is our pleasure to welcome Rachel, a proud daughter of Cuban immigrants who has built a career in entrepreneurship and venture capital to the show as we discuss the firm's Bank of America investment, navigating tough economic times and building a winning team.  Follow Rachel ten Brink on Twitter: @rtenbrink1 Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Zack Guzman is a crypto journalist through and through. But in the last few years, he decided to also challenge the current media model and raised $3.25 million dollars for it. Today, he is the co-founder of Web3 media company Trustless Media, and host of the first community-owned, mainstream crypto show "Coinage." Now, Zack has worked for his fair share of traditional US news outlets. He has also previously worked at Yahoo! Finance as an anchor and at CNBC as a reporter covering startups and tech. His reporting has been featured across multiple platforms including the New York Post, Washington Post, Huffington Post, NBC, Entrepreneur and AOL. Today, we speak about to new media model Zack is fostering, how raising funds had everything to do with the right connections and timing (among them, Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph) as well as how community plays a core role in the future of Web3. Note: We also discuss navigating uncertainty given funding was raised by Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research and the recent downfall of Alameda/FTX. Follow Trustless Media: https://www.trustless.media/ Follow Zack Guzman: https://twitter.com/zGuz?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Hello Moneda Moves listeners and welcome to a new season of the podcast, where we serve you stories about money and cultura from first builders. For the next few episodes we will be talking with multi-hyphenates of the business world: whether they're part-time models and VCs, a journalist turned Web3 company founder, or a community builder working for Paris Hilton and Fidelity at the same time, the super power shared here is that these leaders in their respective spaces transit different worlds, and with that comes rich lessons in money. Today, we're going to speak with Cheryl Campos, called “The Multihyphenate Queen” in article we wrote for Hispanic Executive, having transited investment banking, modeling, community building and venture capital. It's some of these many skills that led her to build La Familia, an ecosystem built just two years ago for Latino founders and venture capitalists to come together. Today, it supports more than 300 venture capitalists throughout their careers from breaking into venture to creating their own funds and is backed by the likes of SVB, Comcast, Samsung Next, Techstars, and more. I met Cheryl when we were early in pursuing our careers in New York City and from one first gen kid to another have very much enjoyed seeing her growth to Head of Growth and Partnerships at Republic, the investment platform helping everyday people get access to private markets. Recently, we spoke with her from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she's getting her MBA. We talk about breaking into VC, the importance of community and the future of her career. Follow Cheryl Campos: https://twitter.com/modelvc?lang=en and https://www.cherylcampos.com/ Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Mi gente, it's your host Lyanne and your are listening to the last Moneda Moves episode of 2022! To close out the season, we are featuring a staple Latina brand near and dear to my heart that we've followed for years, the iconic apparel and accessories company Jen Zeano Designs. Its Texas-based founders and couple Jen and Vero Zeano are community-builders at their core having engaged their family, friends and locals in their business as they bootstrapped on their way to their historic debut in Target in 2022. A bit of background JZD and what it stands for: You may have run into their work via Jessica Alba or Jenna Ortega who have both worn their work, or their relatable, empowering and witty designs that echo phrases engrained in Latine culture (think Poderosa, Vibras Bonitas). Having created their renowned Latina Power design in 2014, and launching as an Etsy store, they were far from an overnight success, but what they did learn was how to lean on each other, harness the power of their community as they expanded their social media, sales as they quite literally prepared to land in a retailer like Target this year during Latinx Heritage Month. Today, we speak with the founders about their reflections on the journey here and taking bigger bets on their business over the years. As we enter the thick of holidays and sala season aka dressing your best for the living room parties, we're also thinking about how to spend our moneda mindfully. So you can bet today's featured builders have a holiday gift guide. You can see their gift guide here: https://shopjzd.com/pages/holiday-gift-guide Felicidades, Jen and Vero! Onto the interview. I hope you enjoy as much as I did, mi gente, and I'll see you in 2023.

Today, we are talking about Latina power and community building. We speak with the founder and CEO #WeAllGrow Latina, Ana Flores, a digital and IRL lifestyle community of impactful Latinas and Femme-Latines who support and uplift each other. Their goal? To increase visibility and grow our social and economic power. The community started in 2010 and since then has grown into a following of 253K and counting on Instagram and bringing people together in person from their Las Founders events out west to their annual summit which just made a return this year. I first attended their summit several years ago, where I had the opportunity to meet other Latinas growing businesses and spaces of their own from writers to life coaches and ecommerce. All are mujeres I still follow and keep in touch with today. In this episode we speak with Ana about We All Grow's story, turning a profit and the nonlinear story of building. Follow We All Grow Latina: https://www.instagram.com/weallgrowlatina/?hl=en Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

We are deep in the fourth quarter of the year and while personally it's a time of gratitude, it's also a time when companies are knee deep in the annual budgeting process to set themselves up for the new year. So naturally, we're also thinking about building! What are our goals, visions and plans for the new year? These are the kinds of questions we encourage you to begin thinking about as well. Today, on Moneda Moves we have a guest who is a firsthand expert in this space to share her story and practical tips for our listeners creating their financial plans for 2023: Jen Hemphill, money expert and podcast host of Her Dinero Matters. Jen is an Accredited Financial Counselor and started her podcast to talk about the importance of learning your money story and how to build confidence in personal finances. Jen started her podcast around the same time our host started covering the influence of Latinos and money, so we discussed her storied journey, the difference between different kinds of financial guides and how to best prepare for the new year. Take a listen.

Hello Moneda Moves fam, it's your host Lyanne and I'm so excited to share today's interview with Web3 Familia, a nonprofit DAO activating across the country to educate, onboard and connect the Latinx community in the Web3 space. But first, I want to give you a bit of a personal update that will impact our listeners of the show. Earlier this year, Moneda Moves was chosen as one of seven teams around the world to be a part of the Google Podcast Creators Program, a five-month accelerator that will provide funding and mentorship to help us grow and help us better serve you. We are so excited to share updates from the journey, and in the meantime you can expect our Moneda Moves episodes to drop on a monthly and adhoc basis through the rest of the year. We've already hit the ground running and are eager to come back in full capacity even better in 2023. In the meantime, if you like the show, please leave a review in Apple podcasts or Spotify — it would mean the world to us. Now, onto today's episode. Today, we are speaking with Orlando Gomez and Magdalena Madrigal, two co-founders of Web3 Familia, a decentralized autonomous organization. And that's a mouthful, so just a bit on what a DAO is: It's an organization run by rules encoded as a transparent computer program. It's controlled by the organization's members versus, say, a central government or a hierarchical structure. No managers are needed, and the idea is that this would eliminate bureaucracy and red tape, thus truly making it a project with shared ownership by the community. And that's a word you'll want to listen for in this interview: Community. Web3 believes heavily in this and that when you leverage community plus the power of blockchain technology, we can really reimagine the way organizations work. So today, we are speaking with Web3 Familia about how they are onboarding one million Latinos across the country to Web3 and the opportunity they see in this space, not only for Latinos but anyone who wants to get involved. We also discuss how their DAO is run, opportunities for growth in the space and how Web3 can benefit creatives. Let's take a listen. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of Latinx and money news: https://monedamoves.substack.com/ Learn more about Web3Familia: https://www.web3familia.com/ Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

The stories we tell matter. I believe that to my core. It's why Moneda Moves exists as a space to host more stories about the intersection of Latines, underrepresented communities and money. So you can imagine how excited I was to interview a trailblazer creating inclusive reporting around fintech, documenting diverse voices and leading the way. Today, we speak with Nicole Casperson, Creator and Founder of WTFintech? It's a newsletter, released twice a week all about founders in fintech, trends and how that affects you, the end user. Why does fintech matter? It's reinventing the way you do your banking, investing, preparing for retirement with technology. It's also a huge opportunity to get the relationship with our underrepresented communities right, to increase access and better deliver services to consumers. Casperson shares how she thinks fintech can impact our future, how she increases representation in media and more. Enjoy the interview — this was a good one. Subscribe to WTFintech? https://workweek.com/brand/wtfintech/ Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

In this episode of Moneda Moves you hear from Fanny Grande, an award-winning filmmaker, actor and director with more than 14 years of experience in the business. The pain points she experienced during her time in the industry are quite common. Representation in Hollywood has historically not accurately reflected the talent in our communities. Latinos are more than 18% of the US population yet make up less than six percent of the share of broadcast TV roles. Fanny saw this issue. So, together with her business and life partner, Nelson Grande, they set out to build a tech-powered solution. They've built Avenida Productions— an LA-based business to help independent filmmakers create, fund, and distribute their projects. We are proud to say this episode of Moneda Moves is sponsored by LAT VC, a purpose-driven venture capital firm investing in Latino-led businesses, including Avenida Productions. LAT VC is on a mission to catalyze the most entrepreneurial yet undercapitalized cohort in the US by investing in businesses led by Latinos. It's aiming to invest more than $100 million in US Latino Entrepreneurs. You can learn more about via lat.vc. Learn more about Avenida Productions: https://avenida.tv/ Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound. This episode is sponsored by LAT VC.

Today we are talking about an issue near and dear to my heart, unlocking Latina power. For a second, I want to do a flashback to a world before the pandemic, when the word “unprecedented” took a whole different meaning. It was the word we could use to describe: Latinas were projected to grow by 25.8%, close to 9 times the projected growth of white women in the labor force, the new businesses generation in our communities, and the growth in Latinas earning a college degree. Enter the pandemic, and this is when we saw our community take a hit and Latinas exit the domestic workforce at one of the highest rates. And while the last two years certainly pose an challenge, Olga Camargo, founder of fintech company SHENIX is optimistic we have much more economic power to unlock in our Latina community, with some education, advocating for equal pay and investing. SHENIX is a Latina-founded app that works with its clients to educate, provide negotiation skills, and develop actionable plans to build wealth. It's also based in my hometown, Chicago, where Latinos are the city's second-largest ethnic group. I'm eager to see the impact this app makes in my hometown, and ahead of then we are talking with Olga about founding her fintech company and the importance of culturally-relevant financial service. Learn more about SHENIX at https://shenix.app/. Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Building wealth and navigating a career when you're first generation in a new country is hard. And Giovanna Gonzalez GETS IT. She's a proud first generation American, daughter of Mexican immigrants, first generation college graduate, and first generation white collar professional. But it's not impossible, and it's just a bit easier when you have a mentor in your life. In the last ten years, Giovanna's paid off her $50,000 collegiate and car debt, and today is debt-free with a net worth of $120,000+ and teaches hundreds of thousands of her followers how to build their own wealth via her brand and TikTok, The First Gen Mentor. On her account (@thefirstgenmentor), she teaches financial education and shares tactical career advice with more than 184K followers. Today, we speak with her about her journey to becoming a finance educator, full-time creator mid-pandemic and how she's taking her immigrant family with her on this financial journey. You can continue to follow Giovanna on TikTok @thefirstgenmentor and on Instagram at @gigithefirstgenmentor, where she will be teaching money and career tips. Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Welcome to part II of the two-part series between Moneda Moves and Latinx professional network La Nueva Link. We're talking all about Making it and building a brand identity that lasts. Joining me today on the panel is co-founder for the network, Deb Renteria. Thank you so much for joining us, Deb. Also joining us to share her expertise is author of "Jefa In Training" Ashley K Stoyanov Ojeda. Latinx-owned businesses are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S small business ecosystem. It's a fact. But in a highly competitive environment, the stakes are also high. Per Bureau of Labor Statistics report, by the end of the fifth year, about half small businesses across the board will have failed. Therein lies one of our critical questions: How to create a brand and business that lasts? Today we speak with two experts in the space to share their guidance and experience. Meet our panelists: Kids of Immigrants was founded by Daniel Buezo and Weleh Dennis as a medium to express their passion to create, empower and love. Inspired by their roots, environments and life experiences the mission statement is simple -- DO THE BEST WE CAN WITH WHAT WE HAVE. Ashley K Stoyanov Ojeda is a community-builder, business-development strategist, coach, and socialpreneur. Originally from Queens, NYC. After creating a national organization that has been featured in The Recording Academy, called #WomxnCrush Music, she has dedicated her career to creating opportunities and developing businesses and communities of underrepresented entrepreneurs through her coaching and consulting, and has become known as the Business Hada Madrina and author of business-launching toolkit “Jefa In Training." Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Today, we're talking about the big $1 million dollars and how to successfully fundraise in today's digital age. In the first of a two-part series done in collaboration with Latinx professional network La Nueva Link, we discuss what it takes to fundraise and build a brand that lasts. Latino entrepreneurs historically have had difficulty attaining the capital from banks and investors needed to survive and scale. Per a report published by McKinsey, “Latinos have the lowest rate of using bank and financial institution loans to start their businesses compared with other racial and ethnic groups,” leaving them to rely more on personal funds. In this episode, we speak with Latinx founder of Shop Latinx Brittany Chavez, who has raised more than $1 million, and leader in the venture capitalist space as well as Partner at $100 million fund LAT VC Laura Moreno Lucas, to demystify the fundraising process and the gaps in the system where it can better serve Latinx founders. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of Latinx and money news: https://monedamoves.substack.com/ Learn more about Listo!: listofin.com Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Getting access to responsible financial services has been a long journey for our Latinx communities in the United States. However, it is these very tools like access to credit-building that are key to creating generational wealth. Ask Mexican immigrant Sam Ulloa, who witnessed this first hand. Today, finding solutions for underserved communities is a personal mission of his. As CEO & Co-Founder of Listo!, Ulloa runs a fintech platform that is democratizing access to fairly priced, life-changing financial services for millions of hardworking and often "credit invisible" families in the US. He is a two-time founder in the fintech space, Stanford's School of Business graduate and started his journey in the US working with his parents in agriculture and observing the gaps in the tools first generation and immigrant Latinos needed to build a financial record. Listo! has already helped thousands of hardworking families save more than $190M in loan interest and fees and over $6M in auto insurance-related fees. Today we speak with Sam more about his journey and mission to provide access to credit, among other financial services with Listo! [Update Editorial Note: This podcast was recorded when the inflation rate was lower — as of February 2022 that rate is 7.9%] Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of Latinx and money news: https://monedamoves.substack.com/ Learn more about Listo!: listofin.com Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Ashley K. Stoyanov Ojeda is expert at helping people launch themselves into their endeavors whether it's music, a career or founding and growing a company. Her journey to coaching entrepreneurs has been anything but traditional, yet wholly authentic — and that's her superpower. Through building community for the music industry, and then learning about how to help others do the same, she became fondly known as the “Business Hada Madrina” or Business Fairy Godmother. Today, she is a business-development strategist, coach, and author of the newly-debuted book, Jefa In Training, a guidebook to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Ashley's career started in the music industry in 2012, and after working at major record labels, created her own network for local womxn songwriters, now a national organization that has been featured in The Recording Academy, called #WomxnCrush Music. Since the growth of her organization, she has dedicated her career to developing businesses and communities of underrepresented entrepreneurs through her coaching. Her book has received praise from the likes of Eva Longoria, We Are All Human's Claudia Romo Edelman and SUMA Wealth's Beatriz Acevedo. We speak with Ashley today about her path to entrepreneurship and actionable tips for Latina entrepreneurs. Without further ado, here's the jefa in charge. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of Latinx and money news: https://monedamoves.substack.com/ Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat.Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Bienvenidos, Moneda Moves listeners! Lately, we've been thinking a lot about fundraising for companies. Because as we discuss the rise of new Latinx entrepreneurs, this kind of capital you can secure as a founder is just as important. It's what helps a company scale and grow. But attaining this kind of capital and raising more than $1 million has not historically been a straightforward journey for entrepreneurs of color, and even less so for Latinas. So today, we are sharing a story to help shed some light on the process and how the pandemic thrust former startup employees into the world of entrepreneurship. This is the story of Agua Bonita's Co-Founder and CEO Kayla Castañeda, who broke fundraising records in 2021 while selling canned aguas frescas, a delicious fruit-derived drink popular in Mexico and Central America. Both she and her co-founder, Erin PonTell, arrived at entrepreneurship experienced in the beverage industry but also out without jobs after their employer startup closed mid-pandemic. As they so wittingly shared with Bustle: “We joke a lot — when life gives you lemons, make aguas frescas.” Castañeda became one of two Latina co-founders who raised $2 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed round for their company. This happened just a year out from founding it and also made Castañeda the first Afro-Latina owned beverage brand to raise this amount. Among the investors? Supply Change Capital, whose founder Noramay Cadena we interviewed in just our last episode of Moneda Moves. (And we suggest you listen to it!) Our hope is that Agua Bonita is an example, but not the exception, to help many other Latina founders raise the capital needed to grow their business. Without further ado, here's our interview with Kayla Castañeda, Co-Founder and CEO fo Agua Bonita. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of Latinx and money news: https://monedamoves.substack.com/ Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

Welcome back, Moneda Moves listeners! Now if you've heard from from us before it should come as no surprise: Latinos are entrepreneurial at their core. Much so that between 2007-2017, 50% of all new small businesses created were Latinx owned, per a report from Bain & Company. During that same decade, only one percent of investment from top venture capital firms went to Latinx-owned businesses. Today, we are going to talk about this gap and a term you've likely heard before: Venture Capital. It's a kind of financing investors supply emerging companies with big growth potential. Because while these investment numbers may not be favorable for Latinx-owned businesses looking to scale, VC founders and operators like Noramay Cadena of Supply Change Capital are positioned to shake up the space. A bit of background: She's a former Boeing engineer turned investor with three degrees from MIT. Today, Cadena is focused on investing in the intersection of food, culture and technology. Supply Change Capital does this all the while focusing on diverse founders, which are tracking to become the majority citizen in the US. We speak Cadena about her pivot into venture capital, how she invests in companies and biggest findings from her time in the space.

As we emerge post-pandemic, we've entered a new era, mi gente. An era that's transferred to a new generation we call Generation G, for global. These are often hard-working young adults, hungry to effect change and contribute to economic growth. They also more often have a good amount of cash versus good credit history. It's this audience that Kristy Kim, founder credit building startup TomoCredit is tapping into. Picture this: You're an immigrant student attending one of the most prestigious schools in the US, with a good track record otherwise, but getting rejected from auto rate, insurance loans, mortgage because you don't have a credit score. That was exactly Kristy's issue and one she knew affected so many people living in the US, especially immigrants who didn't grow up building credit. Informed by her personal experience and that of her industry after working internationally in VC, she built TomoCredit for over 30M people who were just like her and never got the chance to start building credit. Today, we speak with Kristy about the difficulties behind building credit in the US, and how TomoCredit seeks to solve these very issues. No te lo quieres perder. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of Latinx and money news: https://monedamoves.substack.com/ Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat Our music is from Epidemic Sound

If there's any entrepreneur who can speak to the power of navigating multiple worlds, and tapping into her inner creative as a business executive it's Jessie Medina, Founder of diverse creative space FEMX Quarters. Jessie, a Dreamer from Argentina, is no stranger to embracing being a multi-hyphenate. She's gone from being an immigrant to successful corporate executive, to podcast host a Forbes Next1000 entrepreneur. FEMX is a space in San Diego built to connect like-minded women entrepreneurs, leaders and creatives. Today, Lyanne Alfaro, Host of Moneda Moves speaks with Jessie about building a company as an immigrant, making the move from corporate to entrepreneurship and what she's learned along the way. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of Latinx and money news: https://monedamoves.substack.com/ Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat Our music is from Epidemic Sound

On this episode of Moneda Moves in partnership with adidas, we are speaking with Mario Argote, Chief Marketing Officer of Up2Us Sports, helping bring sports to underprivileged communities. He calls it a gateway to further opportunities. Opportunities like new skills, networks, and mindset. And it's especially a game-changer for those who don't have access today. Sports are a big part of US popular culture and can be a formative part of our children's education curriculum. But whether or not they have the privilege to partake largely depends on a variety of factors -- among them related to money. More than 80 percent of children from higher-income families participate in sports. Meanwhile, less than 60 percent of children from lower-income families, making less than $30,000 a year, take part -- that's according to the Pew Research Center. And that comes as little surprise, given that schools serving a high percentage of students in poverty are less likely to offer sports. Up2Us Sports, which is sponsored by adidas, is a nonprofit on a mission to address these socioeconomic disparities, often taking place in people of color communities. Today, we discuss how the organization is providing solutions with bodies in these neighborhoods -- and we hear from a Up2Us Sports Sports Coach, Diana Luna, and Up2Us Sports VISTA volunteer, Emily Murtaugh, helping programs run more efficiently. We speak about the impact these volunteers have on kids in areas of need, how the program impacts their professional advancement and how they facilitate connection through community. No te lo quieres perder. -- Moneda Moves is a platform, newsletter and podcast all about the Latinx community, our relationship with money and role in the American economy. Because many money issues don't impact just our community, we also explore intersectional money issues impacting POC communities. Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram and Twitter @MonedaMoves and subscribe to our weekly digest at monedamoves.substack.com. Your host is Lyanne Alfaro, who tells stories about what's next in the world of technology, business and entrepreneurship. With more than a $2.7 trillion GDP, she is especially passionate about exploring the Latinx influence in the world of business, which she speaks about via newsletter, podcast and platform, Moneda Moves. She is an award-winning journalist, having reported in national outlets including CNBC, NBC Latino, Business Insider, Millie Magazine and worked on audience engagement as well as strategy. You can find Lyanne across Instagram and Twitter @LyanneAlfaro.

Today we speak with Geraldine Ridaura Schumacher, a Latina entrepreneur based in California and a self-proclaimed numbers person. In 2016, she set out to start Holy Matcha, one of the first businesses selling the powdered green tea drinks in San Diego. By last year, following the start of the pandemic, she had stretched herself far more, all to help her business stay afloat. On this episode of Moneda Moves, your host Lyanne Alfaro explores how one founder transformed her matcha business and took matters into her own hands to survive the pandemic. This interview was taped end of June 2021, shortly after this summer's reopening in California, so we also discuss her approach to leading her business today -- a year later -- her relationship between entrepreneurship and mental health as well as her cautious outlook for when businesses emerge from the pandemic. No te lo quieres perder. Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of Latinx and money news: https://monedamoves.substack.com/ Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat Our music is from Epidemic Sound

Meet Roosevelt Giles. Today, he is President and CEO of Atlanta Life Insurance Group and alum of AT&T, where he built network protocols for the Pentagon and Special Forces. But growing up, he and his nine siblings grew up picking cotton alongside his sharecropper parents. The plantation owner cheated his father, and, being illiterate, his parents had no way to prove he was keeping more of their profit than he was owed. Eventually, Roosevelt and his sisters paid off the family's debt and managed to get an education. The company he runs, Atlanta Life, was founded by a former slave Alonzo Herndon who also happened to build one of America's first successful Black businesses. I'm your host Lyanne Alfaro, and on today's episode of Moneda Moves, we talk about his journey to gaining a higher education, becoming a leader in technology and his ideas to rebuild Black Wall Street. These are ideas, as we discuss, that other disenfranchised groups in the United States can borrow as we work to close the racial wealth gap. Also in this episode, we talk about the kinds of responsibilities corporate companies must answer to now as it relates to people of color in a world that is emerging from the pandemic. No te lo quieres perder. -- Follow on Instagram and Twitter on @MonedaMoves Our intro music is "Numero de Cuenta" by Fanta Nelida Other music by Epidemic Sound.

Priscilla Esquivel Weninger is a Texas Latina and daughter of immigrants from Mexico and Peru. She's also a jefa, boss, who landed her dream job working within professional services as a human capital strategy consultant, having earned an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin with a full-ride scholarship — it's a journey she embarked in her mid-twenties, when she realized that the salary she earned in the nonprofit space wouldn't help her achieve the financial independence she desired in the long run. She does not mince words about the journey to get there and stresses: The path is not linear. In fact, it involved imposter syndrome, a lot of mindset challenges and pivots. In this episode of Moneda Moves, we speak with the host of the Early Career Moves Podcast, Weninger, about her trajectory, challenges as she embarked higher education and accelerators in her career. We also talk about what obtaining an MBA did for her career.

Today we’re going back to our roots in journalism. We spoke with Kori Hale, who is CEO and co-founder of CultureBanx, redefining tech and business news for underrepresented communities using music. Once an investment banker, Kori quickly developed an eye for news. She became the first Black woman to anchor a daily news show from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, covering the intersection of business and culture. Yet, she knew there was a need for business news that covered Black and people of color specifically. Enter CultureBanx, a website covering business daily and redefining coverage for these communities. This interview was also done for Meet La Prensa, a network of Latinx and POC journalists across the US. You can find them on YouTube as Meet La Prensa. Intro music is from Epidemic Sound.

President Joe Biden called the $2.7 trillion American Jobs Plan “a once-in-a-generation investment in America...the largest American jobs investment since World War II.” The details of the plan are still coming to light, but elements include childcare, paid family leave, investing in community college. What will this plan and Biden’s administration’s plans at large mean for the Latinx community and how will the administration help get our communities back to work? We spoke with 35th U.S. Secretary of Commerce and CEO or re-skilling tech company EmPath Carlos Gutierrez in our most recent episode for his assessment. A big shout-out to journalist-based group Meet La Prensa, a new YouTube channel spotlighting Latinx and reporters of color. This episode was done in partnership with them.

It’s financial literacy month, mi gente, and that means we are diving in deep to personal finances. Today, we speak with Founder and CEO of Debt-Free Latina, Mayra Alejandra Garcia. She is a financial coach teaching women and families how to get out of debt, grow their net worth and claim their financial independence. In 2010, she was stressed out about our bills, living in a house she couldn't afford, had two car loans, student loans and credit cards. She was ready to make a change and learned how make a budget. A few years later, she created what she calls The Cash Flow Method, enabling people she coaches to see where every penny is.