On April 24, Massachusetts’ Latino leaders stopped networking and started building.
The first Unidos in Power Latino Leaders Summit brought together Latino leaders from across Massachusetts — corporate, nonprofit, government, small business, philanthropy, and academia — for a day built around a different question: not who do we know, but what are we building together.
The day opened with stories from leaders who have shaped their fields in different ways: Jonathan Guzman of the Unidos in Power Steering Committee; Dr. Irene Bosch, MIT researcher and CEO of IDX20; Dr. Jon Santiago, emergency room physician at Boston Medical Center and former state representative and Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs; and Yari Golden-Castaño, systems engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Each spoke to a moment that changed their path — and what it means to pivot, lead, and stay ahead of change.
From there, attendees moved to the real work: structured table workshops organized around four questions. What makes Latino leadership strong, and where are we already overperforming? Where do we need to be honest about what isn’t working, without blaming the system? What would leadership, opportunity, and power look like in five to ten years if we were truly aligned? And what does each sector — and each person in the room — need to do differently to build tighter connections across the community?
The day closed with a short guided reflection from Dr. Joe Betancourt, Chair of Unidos in Power: what will we commit to doing next to build our movement? It was a call back to everything the room had just worked through — but above all, a call to act.
