WorkingNation logo with the tagline of "Covering the Future of Work"
DONATE
Search
WIP Arturo Cazares
Tags   
Tags 

‘For Latino entrepreneurship, we’re building the ecosystem that Latinos have always deserved, but maybe we haven’t always enjoyed’

A conversation with Arturo Cázares, CEO, Latino Business Action Network
By Ramona Schindelheim
-

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | Youtube Music | RSS

In this episode of Work in Progress, I’m joined by Arturo Cázares, the CEO of the Latino Business Action Network (LBAN), to talk about the rapid growth in Latino entrepreneurship in the United States and how empowering these businesses can help the entire economy. We sat down at the Aspen Latino Business Summit in Washington, D.C. in September.

Latino-owned businesses, or LOBs, are making a significant contribution to our economy. In the last 10 years, Latinos created half the new companies in the U.S. Currently, there are more than five million LOBs, generating $800 billion in revenue, and creating jobs.

Cázares says that contribution could be even bigger if we could unlock more opportunity. He says that these businesses have the potential add another $3 trillion in revenue by 2030, if the entrepreneurs had more access to capital and a stronger network of support for starting and scaling up their companies.

That’s where the Latino Business Action Network comes in. Its mission is to empower Latino entrepreneurship. Its partner is Stanford University through the jointly led and supported Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI) within the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

SLEI is described as “an opportunity designed for U.S. Latino business owners who generate more than $1 million in annual gross revenues or have raised at least $500,000 of external funding. This nine-week immersive program provides business owners with education, enhanced networks, personal mentorship, and a better understanding of how to access and manage capital to scale their businesses.”

Here is some of what Cázares tells me about the work LBAN is doing.

“The way that I phrase it is for Latino entrepreneurship, we’re building the ecosystem that Latinos have always deserved, but maybe we haven’t always enjoyed because of the other challenges in our society.

“Almost 1,100 Latina and Latino business owners and founders have gone through our program across the country. That ecosystem includes banks, VCs, angel investors, and a bunch of other organizations that we need to have a truly robust supportive ecosystem. Our ecosystem will include people like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and all of these large organizations.

“As we build that ecosystem for ourselves, that ecosystem really is for everyone because we want even Latinos to examine how they’re doing things. They’re founders. You’re a gatekeeper by default. You’re deciding who to hire, who to partner with. So, if you can think about those processes better and think about all those things that used to keep us out – but now you do it a little better for everyone – that’s opening up the economy for everyone, that’s creating the ecosystem for the country that everyone needs.

“Stated in the mission, our purpose is to grow the American economy, but it’s through this Latino lens of entrepreneurship. We’re empowering Latino entrepreneurship, but the ultimate goal is to grow the American economy for everyone. We’re in this country, we want to be a full part of it, and we want the whole country to prosper.”

You can hear the full podcast with Arturo Cázares here on this page, or download it wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 293: Arturo Cázares, CEO, Latino Business Action Network (LBAN)
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch and Melissa Panzer
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Download the transcript for this podcast here.
You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts

Related Articles
Get the latest from WorkingNation
DONATE
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Our Mission
Contact Us

© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation

Gain access to Essential Stories that Drive Change

Receive compelling updates and in-depth analysis of the latest trends shaping the Latino workforce.

Select how often you'd like to receive insights:

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.

Share Bio