> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.latinoprofessionalsmagazine.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # From a Burned Shoe Shop to $1.7 Billion, From a Deportation Fear to a $9 Billion Budget: Los Angeles Names Its 2026 Maestros - URL: https://www.latinoprofessionalsmagazine.com/2026-los-angeles-maestros/ - Published: 2026-09-10T00:15:48.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-10T00:15:48.000Z - Description: Latino Leaders Magazine honored four careers at a private dinner on August 26. Two of the four organizations behind them have already changed hands. - Author: Rafael Magaña - Tags: Galas & Society, Leadership, Community **GALAS & SOCIETY · AWARDS COVERAGE** *Latino Leaders Magazine honored four careers at a private dinner on August 26\. Two of the four organizations behind them have already changed hands.* By **Rafael Magaña** · September 9, 2026 · \~6 minute read **EDITORIAL** · RECORD №00124 · MMXXVI *Reported, Summer 2026.* --- ## IN BRIEF - **Miguel González Jr.**, co-founder of Northgate González Market, received the Maestro of Entrepreneurship award. He retired from the company's leadership in 2024 and did not attend. Moises Gonzalez and Manuel Gonzalez, both company executives, accepted on his behalf. - **Beatriz Acevedo**, CEO and co-founder of SUMA Wealth and president of the Acevedo Foundation, received the Maestro of Professional Achievement award. She won three Emmys as a broadcaster before co-founding mitú in 2012. - **Erica Bernal-Martinez**, CEO of NALEO and the NALEO Educational Fund, received the Maestro of Community Service award. She joined the organization in 1999 and became its first Latina chief executive this year, succeeding Arturo Vargas. - **Miguel A. Santana**, president and CEO of the California Community Foundation, received the Maestro of Leadership award. As Los Angeles City Administrative Officer he managed a $9 billion budget and helped draft the $1.2 billion Proposition HHH housing bond. --- On August 26, Latino Leaders Magazine named its 2026 Los Angeles Maestros at a private dinner hosted by founder Jorge Ferraez. The magazine gives the honor by region, in four categories: community service, professional achievement, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Three of the four honorees accepted in person. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/94/3e94ebd7-3a38-4e0a-96a8-576065708a98/content/images/2026/09/Maestros-LA-2026-1.jpg) The four awards name four different kinds of work. What the four careers have in common is length — and, in two of the four cases, a handoff that has already happened. ## Miguel González Jr.: Northgate González Market The company began with a fire. Miguel González Sr. ran a small shoemaking shop in Jalostotitlán, Jalisco, until it burned down. "He realized he had to make a move to the United States to keep supporting his large family," the company's own history reads.¹ He came to Southern California, and the family followed. In 1980 he and his son Miguel bought a liquor store in Anaheim. The store was already called Northgate.² The family did not have the money to change the sign, and by the time they did, they kept the name.¹ They later rendered it in Spanish: *la puerta del norte*.² They converted the liquor store into a grocery, adding produce, legumes, and a meat counter.² The younger Miguel, third-eldest of thirteen children, worked in the store from the day it opened.³ The company now operates 46 stores in Southern California and reported roughly $1.6 billion in sales for 2025, on a run rate approaching $1.7 billion.⁴ Thirty family members work in the business.³ A second Mercado González, the company's food-hall format, is planned for Los Angeles.⁴ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/94/3e94ebd7-3a38-4e0a-96a8-576065708a98/content/images/2026/09/DSCF8818.jpg) Moises Gonzalez, Rafael Magaña, Manuel Gonzalez González stepped down in 2024\. His brothers Oscar and Jesús González now share the chief executive role.⁴ Accepting the award were Moises Gonzalez and Manuel Gonzalez. > **"Family first, then business."** > — Miguel González Jr., to the *Orange County Business Journal*³ ## Beatriz Acevedo: SUMA Wealth Beatriz Acevedo was born in Tijuana because her father wanted it that way. Her parents lived in San Diego; he drove her mother across the border so his daughter would be born in Mexico and remain eligible, one day, to be its president.⁵ The family moved to Mexico City when she was three. Her father, an attorney, took his children into poor neighborhoods to share art, food, and music.⁵ She began working in media at eight, recording radio advertisements, then hosting a children's program she rode her bicycle to after school. At fifteen she was on local television news.⁵ She enrolled at UC San Diego in marketing and communications and kept both jobs: classes during the day, a Latino radio station across the border from five to eight, television at night.⁵ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/94/3e94ebd7-3a38-4e0a-96a8-576065708a98/content/images/2026/09/DSCF8645.jpg) Rafael Magaña congratulating Beatriz Acevedo on on her recognition. She won three Emmys as a broadcaster. In 2012 she co-founded mitú, a digital media company built for young Latinos, and raised $50 million for it. She now leads SUMA Wealth, a financial technology company organized around the Latino wealth gap, and serves as president of the Acevedo Foundation.⁶ ## Erica Bernal-Martinez: NALEO Erica Bernal-Martinez joined the NALEO Educational Fund in 1999\. Over more than twenty-five years she ran its civic engagement, constituency services, development, and communications departments, and became chief operating officer.⁷ In 2004 she took a sabbatical to serve as national field director for America's Families United, which coordinated more than twenty-five grassroots organizations across twenty-nine states. The effort registered more than 2.5 million new voters.⁷ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/94/3e94ebd7-3a38-4e0a-96a8-576065708a98/content/images/2026/09/DSCF8804.jpg) Erica Bernal- Martinez (centered), with current and past MAESTROS. This year she became chief executive of NALEO and the NALEO Educational Fund, the largest organization of Latino elected officials in the country, and the first Latina to hold the position. She succeeded Arturo Vargas.⁸ > **"I have had the pleasure of working with Erica throughout her career with NALEO Educational Fund, and take immense joy in the fact that our Board has entrusted her with the role of the next CEO."** > — Arturo Vargas⁹ ## Miguel A. Santana: California Community Foundation Miguel A. Santana is the third of eight children. His parents came from Jalisco in the 1960s and married at St. Vibiana's Cathedral downtown. His father hung drywall; his mother kept the house. The children were born in the United States. The parents were undocumented until the amnesty of the 1980s.¹⁰ > **"I grew up fearful my parents could be deported."** > — Miguel A. Santana¹⁰ He went to work for Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina and rose to deputy chief executive officer of the county, overseeing services for children, families, veterans, and people experiencing homelessness. He earned a master's in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School during a sabbatical.¹⁰ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/94/3e94ebd7-3a38-4e0a-96a8-576065708a98/content/images/2026/09/DSCF8669.jpg) Miguel Santana & Rafael Magaña (2022 Maestro of Ultimate Drive). As City Administrative Officer for Los Angeles he managed a $9 billion budget and helped draft Proposition HHH, the $1.2 billion housing bond voters approved in 2016.¹¹ He later chaired the citizens' committee that oversaw the bond, pressed the city to adopt a faster and cheaper pilot program, and asked publicly what the plan would be once the money was spent.¹² He led the Weingart Foundation before becoming president and CEO of the California Community Foundation in 2023\. The foundation holds more than $2.6 billion in assets. Its voter engagement work helped pass Measure A, a permanent county funding stream for housing and homeless services.¹³ --- ## THE TAKEAWAY Two of the four organizations honored on August 26 are now in their second generation of leadership. - **Northgate González Market.** Miguel González Jr. stepped back in 2024\. His brothers Oscar and Jesús share the chief executive role, and thirty family members work in the business. - **NALEO.** Erica Bernal-Martinez was promoted from within after more than twenty-five years on staff, with her predecessor's endorsement on the record. The other two are at full stride. Beatriz Acevedo is building her second company. Miguel A. Santana is directing $2.6 billion in community assets toward housing and civic participation. Four careers, four organizations, making a difference in our community. --- **A disclosure.* The author, Rafael Magaña, was named a Maestro in 2022, for Ultimate Drive, in a class that included former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Helen Torres of HOPE, and Laura Catena.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/94/3e94ebd7-3a38-4e0a-96a8-576065708a98/content/images/2026/09/Rafael-Magan--a--Antonio-Villaraigosa--Wilie-Brown-Jr--Marisela-Garcia-Marquez.jpg) With former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former San Francisco Mayor and California Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown Jr., and Marisela Garcia Marquez. --- ### Sources & Citations 1. Northgate González Market, company history. 2. On the Northgate name and *la puerta del norte*. 3. *Orange County Business Journal*, interview with Miguel González Jr. 4. Store count, 2025 sales, the 2024 co-CEO transition, and the second Mercado González. 5. Acevedo on her birth in Tijuana, her family, and her early media career. 6. mitú, SUMA Wealth, and the Acevedo Foundation. 7. Bernal-Martinez's NALEO tenure and America's Families United. 8. NALEO's announcement of her appointment. 9. Vargas statement. 10. Santana family background, county career, and Kennedy School. 11. Los Angeles CAO tenure, the $9 billion budget, and Proposition HHH. 12. HHH citizens' oversight committee. 13. California Community Foundation assets and Measure A. --- ### Event Host The **Maestro Awards** is [**Latino Leaders Magazine**](https://www.latinoleadersmagazine.com/?ref=latinoprofessionalsmagazine.com)'s honoree program, held in several U.S. cities under founder Jorge Ferraez. Categories include Leadership, Professional Achievement, Community Service, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation. **Connect & Attend:** - **Latino Leaders Magazine:** [latinoleadersmagazine.com](https://www.latinoleadersmagazine.com/?ref=latinoprofessionalsmagazine.com) - **The Maestro Awards:** [themaestroawards.com](https://www.themaestroawards.com/?ref=latinoprofessionalsmagazine.com) - **Photographs from the 2026 Los Angeles dinner:** [full album](https://slickpic.us/22253700NMTA?ref=latinoprofessionalsmagazine.com) --- Reported and written by **Rafael Magaña**, Founder & Publisher, for *Latino Professionals Magazine*. [→ Full archive](https://www.latinoprofessionalsmagazine.com/author/rafael-magana/) **RECORD №00124 · MMXXVI · Latino Professionals Magazine** Published by Latino Professionals Media Group. Documenting the people, ideas, and institutions shaping American business.