Meet Roberto

I’ve never wanted to be first. But as fate would have it, first would find me: First-generation Mexican-American, first-generation high school and college graduate, first-generation Ivy League alum. After years of charting unfamiliar terrain across all aspects of my personal and professional life, I found my identity had extended beyond the stereotypes of what the world expected of me.

For anyone who has tread a similar path, you know the psychological landmines of occupying workspaces not designed to see you succeed—anxiety, self-doubt, chronic stress, burnout—the four horsemen of the professional apocalypse. But people like us don’t get the luxury to sit around and lick our wounds. We have to drive forward with everything we’ve got—every time, all the time—with little to no support or resources.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

I bring 20 years of experience designing, leading, and facilitating experiences for a wide range of players across multiple industries—from supporting the UN Secretary-General keep health a priority on the development agenda as Director of Communications for the UN Special Envoy for Health, to helping forge a coalition of gay men and people with hemophilia to advocate for safer blood donation policies as interim-Director of Public Policy for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, to facilitating adolescent youth groups in the Bronx to stand in their truths as queer and/or gender non-conforming.

After two decades of producing high-stakes deliverables under immense pressure, and navigating bad bosses within bureaucratic work cultures, I know that the key to ingenuity is driven by the very differences that BIPOC/LGBTQ people have been taught to check at the proverbial door. I strive to extend my learnings and expertise with others, so that they may bring their whole selves into any scenario, be that the barrio or the boardroom.