LEADERSHIP · MEDIA PROFILE

Andrea Marquez grew up on the border of Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico — learning to hold two languages, two cultures, and two audiences inside one story. Today she hosts Amazon's flagship small-business podcast, and the border keeps showing up in the work.

By Rafael Magaña · July 15, 2026 · ~6 minute read
EDITORIAL · RECORD №00099 · MMXXVI
Reported, Spring 2026.

IN BRIEF

  • Andrea Marquez hosts This Is Small Business, Amazon's flagship podcast for early-stage entrepreneurs — the company's first podcast and now a widely subscribed vehicle for founder education.
  • Her production career began at Hispanic Communications Network, where she launched LatinEQUIS, a bilingual podcast on the Latino experience she built, edited, and hosted single-handed.
  • The border between Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico is not backdrop. Marquez credits it — and her parallel undergraduate training in Theater and Law — with the translation instincts that make the show work.
  • Independent, small, and medium-sized businesses account for more than half of everything sold in the Amazon store, according to Amazon's public reporting on its seller ecosystem.¹

Andrea Marquez has always been a storyteller. "I grew up on the border of Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico, and for the majority of my life, I've learned to straddle two cultures to find new ways to tell stories," Marquez explains. This early cross-cultural perspective sparked a lifelong passion for narrative, driving her to make videos, host makeshift radio shows, perform in theater, and write books from a young age. As she grew older, that creative hunger shaped her career ambitions.

"In college, I studied Theater and Law, and people often point out how different those fields are," Marquez says. "But I think they're incredibly similar — at the end of the day, you're just telling stories in a different format."

Andrea Marquez, host of This Is Small Business
Andrea Marquez, host of Amazon's This Is Small Business. Her early training in Theater and Law shaped what she now calls a single discipline — storytelling in a different format.

After earning a Master's degree in Journalism, Marquez found a unique opportunity to merge her production talents and storytelling roots at the Hispanic Communications Network (HCN). As a hybrid marketing agency and radio broadcasting network, HCN gave her the runway to launch LatinEQUIS, a bilingual podcast focused on the multifaceted Latino experience. "I wanted to lean into my own cultural background and share how similar we all are, no matter where we come from," she says.

Building LatinEQUIS from the ground up forced Marquez to master the mechanics of audio production, single-handedly managing recording, editing, guest sourcing, and branding. That comprehensive experience opened doors. In 2021, Marquez joined Amazon's Small Business Empowerment Team to produce and host its first podcast, This Is Small Business.

Targeted at early-stage entrepreneurs, the project hit close to home for Marquez — clashing with a personal vulnerability. "Everyone in my family is a small business owner, either full-time or as a side-hustle," Marquez reveals. "I'm the only one living the corporate life. I've tried launching my own entrepreneurial ventures in the past, and while I don't label them as failures, they were learning experiences. It always made me feel like the odd one out, like I wasn't passionate enough."

That exact tension is what makes This Is Small Business resonate so deeply, both for Marquez and her audience. Through candid conversations, the podcast explores how founders navigate the rocky path to success, offering actionable tools and advice for aspiring owners. The show has also reframed Marquez's relationship with her own heritage. "I understand my family members on a much deeper level now — the challenges they endured just to keep their businesses running," she remarks. "With every episode, I'm building a playbook of how I can do things better if I decide to launch another venture in the future."

"I understand my family members on a much deeper level now — the challenges they endured just to keep their businesses running."
Andrea Marquez in studio
Marquez in production. She was the founding host and producer of Amazon's first podcast, launched in 2021 as part of the company's Small Business Empowerment initiative.

The podcast aligns naturally with Amazon's broader ecosystem, where independent, small, and medium-sized businesses account for more than half of everything sold in the store.¹ "Before I joined Amazon, I didn't realize how heavily they invested in small business education," Marquez notes. "Our goal is to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs by sharing the stories behind the products we love, while equipping them with tangible tools to succeed."

Reflecting on how much the medium has changed since her early days at HCN, Marquez acknowledges the grit required to survive in a crowded landscape. "It's easy to start a podcast, but extremely hard to sustain it and make it stand out," she says. "This journey has empowered me to believe that I can do anything, and I'm grateful to create content backed by Amazon."

Beyond the professional milestones, the ultimate return has been personal. "I have had so many exciting conversations with my father since the start of this podcast," Marquez says of her dad, a fellow entrepreneur. "He listens to every episode, and we've connected in a mature, engaging way about business growth. To me, that is invaluable."

THE TAKEAWAY

The pattern that runs through Marquez's career is not ambition. It is translation — the discipline of making what one group knows legible to another.

  • She translated across languages. Spanish and English, Matamoros and Brownsville, the informal register of home and the formal register of American media.
  • She translated across disciplines. Theater into law, law into journalism, journalism into the specific craft of a founder-facing business podcast.
  • She translated across generations. The informal business knowledge her family lived — the corner store, the side-hustle, the second income — is now a discoverable playbook for founders who did not grow up watching it.

That is the architecture of a life in the middle position: the person who makes what one group knows legible to another. It is the work of the bilingual, the bicultural, and the border-born. And it is why This Is Small Business resonates — because Marquez is not just its host. She is its native translator.

Sources & Citations

  1. Amazon's public Small Business Empowerment reporting has stated for several years that independent, small, and medium-sized businesses account for more than half of the physical products sold in the Amazon store. See Amazon's annual Small Business Empowerment reports at aboutamazon.com.
  2. Career biography, direct quotations, and personal reflections are drawn from interview with the subject, spring 2026.

Andrea Marquez is a producer, host, and storyteller. She is the founding host and producer of This Is Small Business, Amazon's flagship small-business podcast, launched in 2021 as part of the company's Small Business Empowerment initiative. She holds a Master's degree in Journalism and studied Theater and Law as an undergraduate. Prior to Amazon, she launched LatinEQUIS, a bilingual podcast on the multifaceted Latino experience, at the Hispanic Communications Network.

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Reported and written by Rafael Magaña, Founder & Publisher, for Latino Professionals Magazine. → Full archive

RECORD №00099 · MMXXVI · Latino Professionals Magazine
Published by Latino Professionals Media Group.
Documenting the people, ideas, and institutions shaping American business.