Latino-American entrepreneurs share business advice with students

[Allie Gath]

Cesareo Contreras

Arts & Features Editor 

Panelists discussed the importance of flexibility, honoring commitments and finding mentors for Latino entrepreneurs during a panel discussion Wednesday night in the forum.

In honor of Hispanic Heritage month, Career Services, in collaboration with the Center for Inclusive Excellence, sponsored the Latino-American panel discussion and networking event.

The panel was made up of three Hispanic entrepreneurs – Jen Maseda, executive producer/host of the talk show “Woman2Woman” and a recipient of FSU’s Women Making History Now Award, Sylvia Ruiz, vice chairperson of the Hispanic-American Chamber of Commerce and Eduardo Crespo, CEO of Hispanic Market Solutions.

The panel members discussed how their Latin heritage influenced their professional career.

Additionally, each panelist shared insights in regards to how students should prepare themselves for the job market.

Motivation. Intersectionality. Solidarity. Sisterhood. member Priscilla Portugal-Morano, a senior, and Black Student Union member Iracely Sanchez, a junior, led the discussion by asking the panelists a series of prepared questions, each of which spurred an anecdotal and consultative response.

When asked which characteristic they think every leader should posses, each panelist based their answer off personal experience.

For Maseda, who, according to her Linkedin page, is the former Chief Philanthropy Officer of the nonprofit organization United Way, being “flexible” is paramount to a leader’s success.

“Flexibility and being open to new experiences, I think, is really critical in the business community, whether it’s a for-profit or a nonprofit,” Maseda said. She added there are “limited resources,” especially for nonprofits “and everyone on staY needs to really roll up their sleeves and take on some of the strategies ... that are critical to really making the organization successful.”

Crespo said it’s about “understanding yourself and the world around you” and honoring your

commitments.

“If you made a commitment to come to Framingham State University and you don’t graduate, don’t blame anyone else,” Crespo said. “No excuses. Find help. Find mentors and know your environment. ... There are many resources in the University you can use.”

Crespo calls this intuition, knowing “su interno,” which is Spanish for “one’s inside.” It’s a sentiment that he realized while in college.

“I was lucky enough to have a mentor in college,” he said. Crespo recounted how a counselor in the career office explained to him that he was mistakenly enrolled in the wrong major. Rather than coming in as a student with a major in business, Crespo should have been declared a transferred business major. He said if he had not gone to career counseling, he would have never known about that error. He would have had to take a year’s worth of classes he already had credits for.

Crespo said career advising “really saved me,” and made him realize that to succeed, one can’t be afraid to ask for help.

When asked if they faced any challenges on their way to corporate success because of their gender or ethnicity, Ruiz explained as a Puerto Rican woman on the Chamber of Commerce it’s often challenging separating her family life from her work life.

“Being in the chamber, it’s not always off at five in the afternoon,” she said. “It sometimes goes into the night. That’s been one of my biggest challenges – making sure to know where your boundaries are, knowing the time for family and the time for business.”

Maseda said gender played a big role in a number of her previous leadership roles.

“Gaining an experience of power when you are only learning those positions of power from men is challenge for females,” Maseda said. “Women and men bring different qualities and attributes to leadership positions.”

For Crespo, the biggest obstacle was the language barrier, he said. Coming to the United States at the age of 16 from Ecuador, Crespo said it was a shock to be in a new country where he couldn’t readily communicate. Once he mastered English, he didn’t face many racial problems. Crespo, however, did note that many Latinos in the U.S. face a number of economic and social challenges.

“Keep in mind that if your parents or grandparents were born and raised in this area, they have a social network that is lot more extensive [than Latino immigrants] ... By not having the wealth or the knowledge, nor the connections, we are and continue to be at a disadvantage.”

To combat this, Crespo emphasized the importance of education.

Upon reflection, Ruiz said if she were to do it all over again, she would spend less time worrying about understanding where she fit in culturally, and focus more on achieving her goals.

“One of the things I would have really moved forward with is not holding back on who I identified myself with, whether it was being American or being Latino.” she said, “that tended to hold me back a little bit, because I wasn’t sure where I actually fit or where I belonged.”

Being half American and half Colombian, Maseda said she has started losing connection to her Hispanic roots since she moved to New England from Miami. It’s a change Maseda says she is not happy about.

Maseda said one of the reasons she wanted to participate in the event was because she feels the Latino culture is not celebrated here. “In Miami I was celebrated for being Latin,” she said “Coming up here, I’ve lost it.”

Crespo said students should never hide their cultural background in the name of conforming to one centralized American culture.

“There is a tendency in society nowadays for people trying to be assimilated into a culture, which in reality should be multicultural,” he said. “We should all be proud of our heritage ... whoever you are. Don’t let anybody confuse you or convince you that you need to be like somebody else just because the majority may happen to be that way.”