Meet the Latinos Who Could Be the Members of Biden’s Cabinet

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While on the campaign trail, President-elect Joe Biden vowed that his Cabinet would be “the most diverse in history.” In the month since he won the election against President Donald Trump, he has kept well on that promise, appointing multiple women and people of color for key positions. Among them is a handful of credentialed Latinxs.

Some new cabinet appointments, like lawyer Alejandro Mayorkas and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, have already been named, while others are still being considered for posts throughout the Cabinet.

As president, Biden will have to pick leaders for 15 federal departments, including Justice, Homeland Security, Education, Labor, State, and more. After November 3, the president-elect usually begins the process of selection, hoping to assemble the Cabinet before the inauguration so that the Senate can confirm the appointments upon the start of the presidential term. Biden, who pledged to unite a divided country during his campaign, is expected to build a coalition that includes a mix of progressives, moderates as well as Republicans.

So far, the former vice president has chosen possible Cabinet members who are diverse across gender, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity. Among Biden’s groundbreaking cabinet appointments are Mayorkas, the first immigrant to lead the Department of Homeland Security; Becerra, the first Latino to be secretary of Health and Human Services; Janet Yellen, the first woman to be secretary of the Treasury; Lloyd Austin, the first African American to be secretary of Defense; Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay man to be Secretary of Transportation; and Neera Tanden, the first South Asian woman to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

FiveThirtyEight reports that considering cultural identity is normal in the presidential transition and appointment process, particularly for Democrats, which is a more racially diverse party than the GOP, and especially for Biden, who owes his Election Day win to voters of color. According to exit polls, 66% of Latinxs voted for Biden. Even in states where Trump won, like Florida, a larger percentage of Latinxs voted for Biden.

Since Biden’s November victory, multiple Latinx groups have been advocating for Latinx Cabinet appointees. The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a coalition of 42 Latinx groups, including UnidosUS and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), has been pushing the president-elect to appoint at least five Latinxs to Cabinet-level posts. Meanwhile, the Alliance for Latinx Leadership and Policy has provided the Biden transition team with names of established Latinx politicos and professionals to consider for Cabinet positions. While some experienced Latinas had been suggested and considered, including Lily Eskelsen García for secretary of education and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham for the Department of Health and Human Services, at the time of writing, no Latinas have been nominated.

Here are the Latinx cabinet members who Biden has already appointed and others the president-elect is still considering to lead federal departments.

Alejandro Mayorkas

On November 23, Biden nominated Mayorkas for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The third-largest federal department, the DHS includes 187 federal agencies and departments, like U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the National Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and more. If confirmed by the Senate, the Cuba-born, Los Angeles-raised attorney wouldn’t be new to the department. During the Obama administration, Mayorkas served in the DHS, first as the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and then as Deputy Secretary. The 61-year-old would be the first immigrant and Latinx person to lead the department. However, he might face some resistance among Republicans in the Senate, especially for his role in heading up the implementation of President Barack Obama’s contentious Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Xavier Becerra

This month, the president-elect named California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as his pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. If confirmed by the Senate, the Mexican-American would be the first Latinx person to run the department. He’d also be leading amid a surging coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 300,000 people in the United States. Becerra, who was also being considered for Attorney General, has spent much of his time in his current post in California heading legal efforts on health care, including leading a campaign to protect the Affordable Care Act and fighting for women’s health.

Miguel Cardona

This week, Biden’s transition team announced Miguel Cardona, Connecticut’s commissioner of education, as the president-elect’s nominee for secretary of education. Should he be confirmed by the Senate, Cardona, a former elementary school teacher and principal, will have a critical task ahead of him: getting children back to school safely. With a background in bilingual and bicultural education, as well as a commitment to bridge gaps between English-language learners and their classmates, the Puerto Rican nominee could also help materialize Biden’s vision to improve access to college for low-income individuals, students of color, and undocumented youth.

Tom Perez

The president-elect still needs to name nominees for Attorney General and Secretary of Labor, and Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez is being considered for both. The New York-born politician and lawyer has the experience needed for each department. Under the Obama administration, the 59-year-old Dominican-American served as assistant attorney general for civil rights and later as the Secretary of Labor. If nominated, however, Perez might find some opposition from the Senate GOP.

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Have you ever met someone who seems overly confident, self-centered, or even downright rude? Maybe they constantly talk about themselves, disregard your feelings, or even manipulate situations to their advantage. And, if you're anything like us and countless other Latinas, you might've thought, is this person just a purebred a**hole, or are they a narcissist?

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Image by Sayuri Jimenez.

Nathalie Molina Niño has never been one to shy away from breaking barriers, and now, she’s focusing her attention on a new mission: demystifying corporate boardrooms for women, especially Latinas. Molina Niño is the President of Known, an asset management and financial services firm, a veteran tech entrepreneur and builder capitalist, and a board member at the iconic lingerie Brand, Hanky Panky, and others.

Like many corporate boards, Hanky Panky hadn’t publicly disclosed its board composition until recently. After the brand survived the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Molina Niño decided it was time for more women, specifically more Latinas, to know what it means to be on corporate boards.

Coincidentally, the decision to finally be more vocal about this topic aligned with the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, which served as the perfect kick-off to the work.

"Something that rarely gets talked about and I think almost gets kept opaque by design is boards,” she explains in a recent Instagram announcement. “[This Latinx Heritage Month], that’s what I’ll be talking about.” Her goal? To equip more Latinas with the knowledge they need to navigate onto for-profit boards, where they can thrive and build multi-generational wealth.

For-profit corporate boards often feel like an exclusive club. And in many ways, they are, especially for Latinas, who hold the smallest percentage of board seats in Fortune 500 companies compared to other racial groups. According to the latest report from Latino Board Monitor, while Latinos hold 4.1% of these board seats (compared to 82.5% held by white people), only 1% go to Latinas. Molina Niño, a first-generation American of Ecuadorian and Colombian descent, is part of this boardroom minority.

When asked about her experience as a Latina board member during a recent Zoom interview, she said, “It’s been lonely. There’s not a lot of Latinas on boards.” She went on to explain that even serving on boards of Latina-founded businesses gets lonely because, “A lot of the times, people who serve on their boards represent their investors and, as a result, [...] you still don’t see a lot of Latinas on those boards.”

This lack of representation drives Molina Niño’s determination to increase Latina presence in corporate boardrooms. By sharing her insights, she hopes to give Latinas a roadmap to claim their seats at the table. “If you don’t know where to go, it’s impossible to figure out how to get there,” she says.

The Road to the Boardroom

Getting onto a for-profit corporate board isn’t an overnight achievement, but it’s not an unattainable dream either. People often think you need to be a CEO or have a certain type of background, but that’s one of the biggest myths about boards in Molina Niño’s experience. What they’re really looking for is expertise — whether that’s in finance, marketing, sustainability, or even technology. If you have that expertise, you’re already an asset. It’s simply a matter of which road you should take.

Understanding what boards are and how they operate is key to unlocking opportunities. For-profit boards serve as the governing body for companies, overseeing direction and financial stability, and guiding CEOs and executives in decision-making. But Molina Niño emphasizes that not all for-profit boards are created equal.

“There are two kinds [of for-profit boards] [...]. There’s the publicly traded business board and then, on the privately held side, there are, I would argue, two types of boards [...] the traditional business board and the venture-backed business board,” explains Molina Niño. Traditional businesses are often family-owned or long-established and may only form boards to meet requirements, like securing financing or transitioning through an ESOP. Venture-backed boards, on the other hand, are typically filled by investors who hold major stakes in the company.

According to Molina Niño, understanding the difference between them is how you can create a successful strategy. With publicly traded business boards, the whole world is privy to them, so, “The way that you get in there is a little bit more transparent. Sometimes those publicly traded companies will hire a recruiter to help them find new board members,” explains Molina Niño. For private companies, on the other hand, there’s no legal requirement to make announcements. As a result, most people don’t know anything about them or their inner workings.

“Usually what happens in traditional businesses that don’t have venture-capital investments is that the Founders, Executives, or the board members, if one existed already, they usually go to their friends,” and people they deem experienced to fill board seats. In other words, it’s the founder’s decision, and that’s an entirely different approach than hiring recruiters. When it comes to venture-backed business boards, the seats on the board are filled by whichever investor writes the biggest check.

This is why an understanding of the different types of boards and acknowledgment of their own strengths is what will help Latinas define a sound strategy. Whether that’s working with a recruiter, networking and connecting with founders to build trust, or making the biggest investment.

The Path for Latinas

For Molina Niño, the key to getting more Latinas into corporate boardrooms is education. Knowing what a board looks like and how it functions is how you can position yourself to get on it. In openly talking about this, without the mystique it’s usually shrouded in, Molina Niño is providing women, especially Latinas, with invaluable insights. “If we had Latinas understanding what are the three types of for-profit boards I think that, on their own, they would be able to figure out what their best chance is and adjust their careers to make themselves more competitive,” states Molina Niño.

When asked about the impact of increased Latina representation in boardrooms, Molina Niño flips the narrative. “Boards don’t help Latinas by offering them seats; Latinas help businesses thrive by being on their boards,” she says. “The whole point of sitting on a board is that you have experience and expertise, and as Latinas, you also have some cultural experience that everyone wants. [...] At the end of the day, we [Latinas] have to realize that we have a ton to offer and we have to be selective about where we put that expertise,” she explains.

As demand for access to the Latina consumer rises, Molina Niño predicts that more Latinas will find themselves recruited into boardrooms. But she’s not content to sit back and wait for that moment. By openly sharing her journey and insights, she’s making sure other Latinas know their worth and have the tools to claim their place at the table. “I realized that quietly being on boards that helped me personally is not helping other Latinas. [...] I was lucky enough to have friends who could advise me and share their experiences, so that’s why I’m doing this,” she stated.

With Hispanic Heritage Month as the backdrop, Nathalie Molina Niño’s mission is clear: “My goal is just to give Latinas enough information so they can make a plan for how to eventually get on a board that they’re paid to be on and that will eventually help them build generational wealth.”

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Ever noticed how September in Latin America is just one big celebration? As we wave goodbye to summer and avoid winter as long as we can, the streets come alive with parades, music, and festivities. Many Latin American countries celebrate their freedom this month, commemorating their hard-fought battles for independence from colonial domination. Let’s dive into these significant days and understand what makes each unique.

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