Before anyone spoke about capital or the C-suite, Frank Carbajal danced. The founder of the Silicon Valley Latino Leadership Summit opened its fourteenth annual gathering not with a podium greeting but with a pop-locking routine that pulled the room to its feet before a single panel had convened. It was a choice, and it set the terms for the day. The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, a building devoted to the region's mythology of invention, spent October 11 as something else entirely: a room where several hundred Latino executives, entrepreneurs, and students gathered under a theme stated plainly on the program — "Elevate, Empower, Lead. It's Time. Es Tiempo."

The claim that followed the dance came from Ramiro Cavazos, president and CEO of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "Our community's economic impact is unstoppable and undeniable," he told the room. It is a sentence built to be repeated, and it carries a real argument underneath the confidence: that Latino professionals in rooms like this one are no longer arguing for a place in the American economy. They are describing one they already hold.

The morning's panel, "Elevating Emerging Leaders," moved from that macro claim to the mechanics of getting there. Moderated by Angel Chavez of Morgan Stanley, the conversation brought together Berta Alicia Bejarano of Kaiser Permanente, Lorenzo Cancel of Apple, and Anna Dapelo-Garcia of Lean In Latinas around three subjects rarely given equal billing: mentorship, pay equity, and financial literacy. The throughline was a piece of counsel offered in Spanish and meant to travel — aboga por ti mismo, prepárate, y trae a los demás contigo. Advocate for yourself. Prepare. And bring others with you. It is not a slogan so much as a sequence, each step incomplete without the next.

Then came the awards, three of them, each naming a different route to influence. Elizabeth Oliver-Farrow, CEO of the Oliver Group, received the Lifetime Leadership Award from Nely Galán. Tom Chavez, co-founder of super{set}, received the Pioneer Leadership Award from Jacqueline Martinez Garcel, and offered the day's sharpest line of definition: "Leadership is about moving belief into action and drawing a larger circle where all belong." José E. Feliciano, co-founder of Clearlake Capital Group, received the Trailblazer Leadership Award from Xavier Gutierrez. Between the citations, the Joel and Angela Robertson Legacy Foundation presented scholarships to graduating seniors from Cristo Rey San José High School, a reminder that the summit's ambitions extend past the people already in the building.

The afternoon panel, moderated by Ozzie Gromada Meza of the Latino Corporate Directors Association, turned the day's argument on itself. If the morning had been about arriving at influence, the afternoon asked what arriving obligates you to do. Patty Juarez of Wells Fargo put it without cushioning: "Once you have influence and a seat at the table, shame on you if you don't bring others up with you." Fellow panelists Xavier Gutierrez and Rose Hartwig pressed the same point from different angles — that influence, once acquired, functions less like a reward and more like a debt.

A quieter register arrived with Local Color, a community-creativity showcase presented by Erin Salazar and Ramiro Torres, placed deliberately alongside a day otherwise dominated by boardrooms and balance sheets. The pairing argued something the schedule didn't need to say aloud: that culture-building and capital-building are not competing forms of leadership, but two versions of the same project.

Jeff Valdez closed the formal program with a keynote titled "Funny Business," built around a message about risk — embrace the no's, take the leap before fear can talk you out of it. He described himself simply: "I'm 100% Mexican and 100% American." No hyphen, no qualifier, no tension offered between the two.

By the time the private reception opened among the museum's tech exhibits, the day's real subject had become clear. This was never only a conference about Latino professionals arriving in Silicon Valley. It was a working theory of what arrival requires afterward — mentorship extended, pay equity demanded, torches passed while still lit. Fourteen years in, the summit's organizers are betting that leadership, like the dance that opened the morning, is proven less by the entrance than by whether anyone follows.

Event Host

The Silicon Valley Latino Leadership Summit, founded and led by Frank Carbajal through Es Tiempo, LLC, convenes Latino executives, entrepreneurs, and students to advance Latino leadership development. The 14th annual summit was held October 11, 2025, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

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

RECORD №00119 · MMXXVI · Latino Professionals Magazine
Published by Latino Professionals Media Group.
Documenting the people, ideas, and institutions shaping American business.