Abundance of Opportunity for Latina
Entrepreneurs in Golden Gate City
By Christine Bolaños
San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gates
are a welcoming symbol of opportunity
for innovators, entrepreneurs and
business-minded professionals across the world.
Taking advantage of the abundance of
opportunity in this California city, are Latinas with
bright ideas and the grit to make them a reality.
“Latinas are touching the San Francisco
economy in many different industries, so the
impact is widespread,” says Nancy Marmolejo,
who owns Talent and Genius, which works
with entrepreneurs and organizations to bring
out their unique “genius” and apply that to
leadership, personal branding, positioning and
marketing.
She has Latina friends who are launching
startups and others who make hiring decisions at
well-established companies.
“In my Latina entrepreneur circles, we make
sure that we are buying from each other,
referring business to each other and making key
introductions. I see our economic impact through
the lens of helping each other succeed and
prosper,” Marmolejo adds.
That sense of solidarity is something Jolynn
Vallejo, director of LatinSF, is trying to cultivate
even further. LatinSF is a public-private partnership
between the City of San Francisco’s Office of
Economic Workforce Development and the
nonprofit economic development agency
GlobalSF. The organization aims to promote
San Francisco as a top destination for Latin
American businesses, bridging connections
between the Bay Area and Latin America.
Vallejo has identified a segmentation among
Latino and Latin American businesspeople and
hopes to unite them through aligned business
goals. She hopes that by uniting domestic-born
and Latin American-born entrepreneurs, LatinSF
can help businesses across the Americas
prosper while staging San Francisco as a truly
international business hub.
“San Francisco is the capitol of innovation.
It’s arguable you need to be in San Francisco or
in Silicon Valley to make your business go
global,” she says, adding that the vision of
Nancy Marmolejo, CEO, Talent and
Genius.
LatinSF is to give all types of entrepreneurs a
level-playing field.
Karla Garcia is founder and owner of Bris’s
Creations, a bakery that also offers classes to
customers who want to learn to make their own
“Latinas are touching the
San Francisco economy in
many different industries, so
the impact is widespread.”
— Nancy Marmolejo
fine gourmet creations. Twenty-five percent of
revenue goes toward supporting the nonprofit,
Center for the Economic Independence of
Women and Youth, to help support women and
child survivors of violence. She aims to launch a
new website that will include her nonprofit later
this month.
But launching her business with her
husband, Garcia managing the finances and her
husband serving as chef, wasn’t a walk in the
park. She says there wasn’t a whole lot of
information available to Latina entrepreneurs
planning on launching their own businesses at
the time. She learned to cultivate connections
and make the most of her already-established
resources.
“I got connected with the Hispanic
Chamber of Commerce -- they opened so many
doors for me,” Garcia explains. She got catering
jobs and opportunities in consulting before
landing on radio stations, where she had the
“San Francisco is the
capitol of innovation. It’s
arguable you need to be in
San Francisco or in Silicon
Valley to make your
business go global.”
— Jolynn Vallejo
Jolynn Vallejo, director, LatinSF.
14 LATINAStyle www.latinastyle.com Vol. 25, No. 1, 2019
/www.latinastyle.com
