2021 Hispanic Innovation and Entrepreneurship program

An award-winning multicultural communications expert and strategist, public speaker, journalist, published author, and small business advocate,  Susana G. Baumann, MAA, MLS,  is the President, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of Latinas in Business Inc. An Argentinean immigrant, Baumann founded her own small business over 20 years ago,  LCSWorldwide Multicultural Marketing Communications, in New Jersey.

Among their clients, LCSWorldwide serviced major pharmaceutical and healthcare corporations, national non-profit organizations and government agencies in healthcare and education in nine states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Texas, and California State Libraries. A highlight of Baumann’s career included being part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Spanish Language Outreach Program trainers’ cohort at WebJunction.com in 2007 and 2008. 

Baumann retired in 2014, but the same year, at 64 years of age, and with little knowledge of digital technology, she launched LatinasinBusiness.us,  an initiative that advocates for the economic empowerment of Latinas and other minority women entrepreneurs and in Corporate America. It provides  branding, marketing, advertising, and editorial services through a quality digital platform, digital marketing content, social media campaigns, and promotional and educational events. 

In 2018, the initiative gained non-profit membership status as Latinas in Business Inc. and has reached over 1900-plus members nationally. The organization has promoted more than 700 Latina small businesses and Latinas in the corporate world so far through its digital platform, gaining 12,000 subscribers. 

“Through this initiative, I help women accomplish their goals while avoiding the obstacles and challenges I had to face when I began my business over 20 years ago. They can lead their journey to success by taking control of their own story and networks to finally accomplish their career or business goals.” Susana G. Baumann, President, CEO, and Editor in Chief, Latinas in Business Inc.

Baumann is a member of the Entrepreneur Zone Working Group at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), a group that works in the small business post-pandemic recovery aiding the work of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. 

Named "Journalist of the Year" by the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey for her service and advocacy to Latino small businesses, she has been a speaker several times for national and regional organizations, regional and local chambers, and colleges and universities, always looking to change the narrative about Latina entrepreneurs.

In 2019, Baumann was invited to become a SheSource Expert at Women’s Media Center (WMC), and in 2020, she received a Fellowship from Encore.org.

Olga Camargo is CEO and Founder of FARO Associates LLC*, an independent woman-owned business and Minority Business Enterprise or MBE, a specialist in operations consulting, risk management, and advisory services headquartered in Chicago. With a combined 45 years of experience, the experts at FARO Associates have excelled at delivering high-quality tailored financial services, insurance brokerage services, and served as trusted operations consultants to businesses, nonprofits, and government across industries that include education, construction, and healthcare. 

In 2006, Camargo  authored a graduate thesis that focuses on the imperative need for financial institutions to provide genuine culturally-relevant financial services to better engage today’s culturally diverse society. Camargo ’s financial practice is built on her proprietary research. She has received numerous national recognitions for her innovative work in the industry.

Camargo  was selected by Hispanic Lifestyle for its “2018 Latinas of Influence National Award.” In 2017, Diversity MBA Magazine honored Camargo  with its National Top 100 Under 50 Executive Leaders Award. She is part of New America Alliance’s American Latina Leadership Caucus, comprised of the 100 most influential Latinas across sectors in the U.S. In 2013, she was inducted into the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Business Administration Alumni Leadership Academy for her outstanding contribution in her industry and for raising the standing and stature of the college. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs selected Camargo  for its 2010 Emerging Leaders Program, a highly competitive cohort of Chicago’s up-and coming professionals, leaders who continue to raise the bar for Chicago as a leading global city. 

Camargo  has over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry and holds the Accredited Investment Fiduciary® (AIF®) professional designation from Fiduciary 360  and an Illinois insurance producer license. Camargo  earned both bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Illinois at Chicago.   

Camargo  is a Commissioner on the Board of the Public Building Commission of Chicago, chaired by Mayor Lori Lightfoot. She is the National Board Chair for the Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement—52,000 members across the United States. Camargo  serves on the Illinois State Treasurer’s Hispanic Advisory Council and on the Metropolitan Planning Council Board of Governors. 

* FARO Associates LLC is certified with the State of Illinois Department of Central Management Services’(CMS) Business Enterprise Program (BEP) as a Minority Owned Business (MBE); Nationally Certified MBE by the Chicago Minority Supplier Development Council; Registered with the U.S. government’s System for Award Management (SAM) as an MBE and Women Owned Small Business

Alejandra Y. Castillo was sworn in as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development on August 13, 2021. She has served in leadership positions for three presidents – Biden, Obama, and Clinton. Her professional career spans two decades, focusing on creating equitable and inclusive opportunities for all Americans.   Prior to Economic Development Administration (EDA), Castillo was the Chief Executive Officer of YWCA USA, where she championed the 163-year-old organization delivering critical social, educational, and economic development services throughout its 204 associations.

In 2014, Castillo was appointed by President Obama to serve as the national director of the Commerce Department's Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), becoming the first Hispanic woman to lead the agency. During her tenure, she led MBDA's efforts to boost the growth and global competitiveness of minority business enterprises (MBEs). Under her leadership, MBDA expanded its effort to help MBEs gain access to capital, contracts, and business opportunities, assisting MBEs in growing in size and scale.

Castillo first joined the Department of Commerce in 2008 as a Special Advisor to the Under Secretary for the U.S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration (ITA). Additionally, Castillo served as a Senior Policy Analyst in the White House during the Clinton Administration.

She holds a bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, a master's degree in public affairs from the LBJ School at the University of Texas at Austin,  and she earned a Juris Doctor degree from American University's Washington College of Law.

Jennifer Garcia is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Latino Business Action Network (LBAN), a nonprofit organization focused on strengthening the United States by advancing Latino entrepreneurship.  LBAN collaborates with Stanford Graduate School of Business to champion the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, which explores and expands the knowledge of the Latino entrepreneurship segment in our economy through research, education, and ecosystem development.

Garcia oversees the strategic operations of the organization and is spearheading the organization’s digital transformation for greater efficiency and sustainability.  Under her leadership, she managed five successful cohorts of the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Education Scaling Program.  She leads an ecosystem of 800 scaled Latino and Latina entrepreneurs across the United States and Puerto Rico, contributing nearly $4.9 billion in annual revenue.  Her visionary leadership has created growth pathways for access to capital and contracts, digital transformation, and capacity building.

In her role, Garcia developed strategic relationships with national organizations, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, Western Region National Minority Development Council, Hello Alice, and Latinas In Business.  Garcia is responsible for fundraising to grow the annual budget and cultivate and diversify LBAN’s sponsor relationships.  Garcia is often the face of the organization, serving as a thought leader and speaker to represent the organization across multiple platforms and promote its mission.

In addition, Garcia is the founder of Fluential Leadership, elevating small-to-medium-sized business performance through developing and executing growth strategies, recruitment, and retaining talent. Garcia is skilled at transforming teams, processes, and products through a portfolio of solutions, including the Stages of Growth Model, Strategy and Innovation Planning, SWOT, psychometric assessments (TTI, DISC, EQ, etc.), and communication training.

Prior to LBAN, Garcia spent 12 years at Bloomberg L.P. She managed the West Coast Asset and Investment Management Product Specialist Team and the Fixed Income and Foreign Exchange Electronic Trading team. In her sales role, she was responsible for managing a $6 million portfolio, C-suite relationships, and in 2010 received the Sale of the Year Award.

Garcia has illustrated distinguished passion and service to the Latino community. She participated in the inaugural class of the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley Latino Board Leadership Academy with the mission of recruiting and training Latinos to serve as future board members. Garcia co-founded NALA, Lambda Theta Nu’s alumnae association, whose mission is to promote academic excellence in the Latino Community.  She is the Co-Author of Hispanic Stars Rising – The New Face of Power.

Garcia received her MBA from the University of San Francisco and her bachelor's degree from Colorado State University, Fort Collins. She sits on the board of the San Francisco Adult and Teen Challenge.

Tito Leal  serves as Chief Financial Officer of Prosperity Labs, where  he utilizes his strengths and experience to help drive strategy, creating budgets, analyzing financial statements, and strategically interpreting data to ensure sustainability of Prosperity Lab. He is an active partner to the Executive Director and brings a forward-looking and proactive stance to managing the organization´s finances. 

Leandro Margulis is the Head of Product Marketing at Prove, the mobile identity company. Prior to that, he was the Vice President of Developer Relations at UnifyID, a behavioral biometrics company acquired by Prove.

Before that,  Margulis   worked as the Vice President and General Manager of Developer Relations at TomTom, a leading independent location technology specialist, shaping mobility with highly accurate maps, navigation software, real-time traffic information, and services.

Prior to joining TomTom,  Margulis   served as the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Alliances at Cint, where he was responsible for developing a new business unit around data collaboration and supply with “non-traditional” partners such as publishers, app developers, and Data Management Platforms (DMPs) for data distribution of self-declared, deterministic, first party data.

Margulis   also founded Search-N-Work, a recruiting and confidential job search platform, as well as TrazeTag, a company focused on tracking high value assets. Margulis  received a patent for the invention of durable RFID tags to track the assets.

Margulis  has previously held the positions of Senior Consultant at Deloitte, Managing Director at Impulsa Business Accelerator, Director of Global Strategic Partnerships at Quixey, and Senior Director of Product Management and Business Strategy at a stealth travel and leisure startup.

Margulis  has an inventive mind and holds multiple patents reflecting the ideas coming to mind during his different roles. He was granted a patent on identifying gaps in search results and, as an avid networker, filed for other patents to make networking more effective during in-person events.

Margulis  was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina and emigrated from Argentina to the United States in the Early 2000s. He holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and an Industrial and Systems Engineering degree from Florida International University (FIU), where he graduated summa cum laude. He is a member of the Board of ORT America, which is part of World ORT, a global organization focused on education. Margulis resides in San Francisco, California with his wife.

Nestor Ramirez joined the USPTO in 1989, became a Primary Examiner in 1995, a Supervisory Patent Examiner in 1998 and a Group Director in 2008. Throughout his career, he managed employees examining patent applications in the fields of Power Plants, Motor Structure, Electrical Measuring and Testing, and Computer Architecture. However, his involvement in special projects has left a trail of significant accomplishments. In 2000, he received the Director’s Supervisory Equal Employment Opportunity Award for his work as part of the USPTO Recruitment Team. In 2001, he received the Patent Management Innovation Award for his leading efforts to create and implement a time and attendance system. Ramirez has also served as a spokesperson for the USPTO with published articles in the Washington Post Magazine and Engineering Times. 

For almost three years, Ramirez served as a managing partner in charge of overseeing the implementation of the electronic Image File Wrapper (IFW) to the entire examining corps. The IFW project was the first step in the USPTO’s transition to a paperless environment. During his career, Ramirez has received three Bronze Medals and served as Executive Assistant to the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Resources and Planning. Ramirez served as Director of the Office of Patent Automation (OPA), where he was responsible for numerous patent automation initiatives, including the development of the electronic red folder.

In 2008, Ramirez was selected to join the ComSci Fellowship Program and participated in a one-year assignment to the Executive Office of the President of the United States, where he served as the Executive Director of the National Science and Technology Council. 

Today, Ramirez is a Technology Center Director, in which position he oversees the operation of 16 art units in the areas of cybersecurity and cryptography. 

Marivelisse Santiago-Cordero is a Senior Advisor to the Deputy Commissioners for Patents at the USPTO, where she provides management advisory services and assistance. Prior to that, Santiago-Cordero served as a Supervisory Patent Examiner (SPE) and Technology Center Operations Manager (TCOM) in the USPTO’s Communications Technology Center (TC 2600), where she was responsible for overseeing a staff of patent examiners in the network printing area. Santiago-Cordero has helped the USPTO increase IP accessibility to a larger demographic. She led a series of information webinars in Spanish that provided IP information to underrepresented Spanish-speaking inventors. 

In 2004, Santiago-Cordero joined the USPTO as a patent examiner after earning a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, where she graduated summa cum laude. Since joining the USPTO, she has been instrumental in the mentoring, development, and training of new patent examiners. In her role as a patent examiner, she led  quality enhancement meetings for the telecommunications area. Santiago-Cordero is also actively involved with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), a USPTO professional affinity group. Santiago-Cordero was awarded the USPTO’s Bronze Medal award for superior performance in 2019. Some of her favorite pastimes include traveling, walking, and spending time with her son.

Juan Valentin is an Education Program Advisor in the Office of Education (OE) at the USPTO, where he is responsible for the development and implementation of educational projects of national and international scope, with a particular emphasis on directing and coordinating the development of STEM, design-thinking, or invention-focused projects infused with IP concepts. Cultivating relationships and finding areas for collaboration with external organizations, academic institutions, and federal agencies is also is a significant part of Valentin’s job. 

Prior to joining the OE team, Valentin was a USPTO patent examiner for 12 years, specializing in the art of optical measuring and testing devices.

Community outreach is an important part of Valentin’s life. His volunteer work with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers includes youth education and outreach on behalf of engineers and leadership training for members of all levels within the organization. Valentin holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Clarkson University. 

Sean Wilkerson works in the Office of Innovation Outreach at the USPTO creating IP awareness programs and managing outreach services to independent inventors, small businesses, entrepreneurs, makers, and universities. Wilkerson previously worked as an outreach coordinator for the programs leading up to the opening of the USPTO’s Silicon Valley and Texas Regional Offices. He also spent a year as part of the New York engagement team that developed the 2015 Future of Urban Innovation Startups Summit in coordination with Columbia University and the USPTO.

From 2011–2013, he served as the program manager of the inaugural Select USA Summit, developing the program, structure, and outreach efforts of a U.S. government-wide program housed in the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. As an education program analyst in the Global Intellectual Property Academy from 2008–2011, he managed international programs focused on providing IP training related to enforcement of patents, trademarks, and copyrights and the U.S. patent and trademark system. Prior to working for the federal government, he served as the Director of Events for the National Association of Homebuilders in Washington, D.C. and as the Ideas Exchange Manager for Accenture in Reston, Virginia. Wilkerson was awarded the USPTO’s Bronze Medal award for superior performance in 2021.