2023 Latino Achievers
AMAYA ESPARZA
Santander Corporate & Investment Banker
Amaya Esparza has a BA in Economics from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, and an MBA in Business Administration and Management plus a Master of Arts in Finance and Economics from Leeds University, UK.
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Amaya is an Executive Director in the Santander Corporate & Investment Banking division. Originally from Spain, she moved to the United States with her family in 2010 and lives in West Harlem. Amaya is also the Regional Leader of the Santander Women’s Network for New York and New Jersey, dedicated to the development, empowerment, and growth of women.
ARLENE IMENDIA
Vice President
Arlene is a leader on GSAM’s Alternative Investment Solutions Group. In her role, she is responsible for Alternatives relationships with key platforms, custodians and technology providers. Arlene spent almost 10 years on the GSAM LATAM Institutional Sales Team where she delivered the breadth of investment capabilities to clients. Arlene is highly driven with a focus on excellent client service. She is seen as a subject matter expert, mentor, and friend by her colleagues. In her free time, Arlene enjoys traveling, trying new restaurants, hanging out with her husband Ricky, and reading about current events and pop culture news.
CARLOS CABANA
Managing Director, Head of Equity Sales & Trading
A member of senior management, Mr. Cabana has built the CastleOak Equities team into a desk providing 24/6 coverage for domestic and international markets and doubled the department's revenues during his tenure. At the community level, Mr. Cabana operated a lacrosse program providing underserved participants access to top coaching and playing opportunities.
Prior to CastleOak, Mr. Cabana was at Topeka Capital Markets as Head of Quantitative Portfolio Trading. Prior, he was at Cantor Fitzgerald as a Managing Director of global program trading, Knight Capital Group as a Director on the program trading desk, Bloomberg LP running several sales teams including trading systems and equity, fixed income and foreign exchange electronic trading platforms, and Foreign exchange departments of Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns. He holds a BA in Economics and Spanish from Bucknell University, and an MBA in Finance and a Masters in BCIS from Hofstra University.
EMILY ESTEVEZ
Managing Director
Emily Estevez has more than 20 years of investment and commercial banking experience. She manages the relationships for a portfolio of U.S. electric and gas utility companies and coordinates the structuring and execution of financial
transactions for her clients. Emily is focused on forming partnerships with utility clients by providing value-added multiproduct solutions to support and meet the clients’ financing needs.
Emily began her career at JPMorgan Chase & Co. within its Power and Utility Investment Banking Division. The majority of Emily’s career has been dedicated to the energy and power sector with experience in corporate and investment banking, syndications, leveraged finance, project finance, and restructuring.
She is a founding member of UNIDOS (SMBC’s first Hispanic/Latin American employee-led resource group) and Chair of the Corporate and Investment Banking Inclusion and Diversity Council. Emily also serves as a member of the SMBC Executive Inclusion & Diversity Council and the Campus Recruitment Advisory Group for the Americas. In addition, she is a member of the Women’s Inclusion
Network (WIN) leadership team at SMBC, where she serves as a
Co-Chair of the Mentoring Committee.
Emily has a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and international business from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
FRANK LUNA
Executive Director, Technology Services
Mr. Frank Luna graduated in 2001 with a degree in Computer Since (with honors) from APEC University in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. While attending college, Frank also worked for two of the largest financial institutions over there. At an early age he also became a Microsoft Certified Trainer which allowed him to teach senior IT engineers how to leverage and use Microsoft technologies.
In 2004 Frank joined the IT group of a large office supplier company in New Jersey and in that role he was leading the data and analytics implementation for their eCommerce group. Shortly after that in 2006, he joined KPMG and moved up in his career and he is now an Executive Director for the Global Tax Transformation and Technology practice. He serves as the technology delivery lead for the KPMG Global Tax Practice supporting the US and the Global KPMG clients across many different service lines. Frank has been developing Tax Technology solutions for KPMG since he joined. In 2015 Frank received his Master in Business Administration (MBA) from NYU Stern. This was a great step in Frank’s professional education as it helped him grow in his career.
In 2018 he was awarded the KPMG Montvale Chairman Award, this is prestigious recognition to honor employees for their extraordinary performance, impact on an inclusive culture, and commitment to KPMG values. For several years now Frank has also been an active member of the Hispanic Information Technology Executive Council (HITEC) where he has been mentoring other Hispanic IT professionals. He has been also mentoring youth Hispanic high school students from the Cristo Rey High School. Frank enjoys mentoring and this has given him the opportunity to pay it forward and guide those who might benefit from it.
IGNACIO LAGOS
Associate
Ignacio is an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton’s Latin America practice. Since joining the firm in 2014 in Cleary’s former Buenos Aires offices, Ignacio has specialized in providing legal advice to sovereign entities in Latin America, assisting them in capital raising transactions or renegotiating existing debt. Ignacio regularly participates in transactions by the governments of Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay. In particular, Ignacio played a key role in the restructuring of Argentina’s debt in 2020.
Ignacio dedicates time providing pro bono legal advice to immigrants from different countries of Latin America, most of which have undergone traumatic experiences prior to, or shortly after, their arrival to the United States. Ignacio holds a law degree (Abogado) and economics degree (Licenciatura en Economía) from the University of Buenos Aires and an LLM from Stanford University. He grew up in a ski resort in northern Patagonia, Argentina, and takes every opportunity to get back on the ski slopes.
Director, VPS- Client Services
LORRAINE A. NIETO
Lorraine leads the Service Delivery and Service Assurance Teams within the Verizon Partner Solutions Client Services Organization. Her team is responsible for all of Global Wholesale Operations related to Fiber to the Cell (FTTC), Optical Wavelength Services (OWS), and Ethernet Services. Lorraine's organization is dedicated to delivering an exceptional customer experience that contributes to the overall success of Verizon and its customers. Lorraine joined VPS in February of 2020 as a Senior Manager overseeing the VzB Ethernet Service Delivery Team.
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Prior to VPS, Lorraine was part of our Global Network & Technology Team for approximately 23 years and held various roles of increasing responsibility at both the Supervisor and Senior Manager levels. Highlights of Lorraine’s accomplishments as part of the GN&T team include leading the Test Center Teams responsible for the 4G LTE FTTC rollout in NY and NJ, FOA for DS1 GPON in NYC, and the 5G rollout for VZW Dark Fiber. Lorraine also led the first regional OCC Team to successfully deliver 10G Ethernet over our Intelligent Edge Network (iEN) for T-Mobile. In addition to leading these initiatives with our cross-functional teams, Lorraine was part of the team that developed a Center Integration Plan to cross train the test center associates on the provisioning and maintenance functions. The first fully integrated regional test center, which included approximately 150 associates, was successfully established in 2014.
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Lorraine began her journey in telecommunications in 1997, when she joined NYNEX as a Customer Service Representative. She was also a qualified Central Office Technician prior to joining the management team in 2004. Lorraine has a Bachelor of Science in Business Management and a Master of Science in Network & Communications Management & Services from the Stevens Institute of Technology.
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Lorraine is very passionate about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging and enjoys being an active participant within the Verizon Employee Resource Group (ERG) community. The SOMOS ERG is the voice of the global Latino community at Verizon. Lorraine currently has two roles in the SOMOS ERG. She serves as a Co-Lead for the SOMOS Northeast Region and as a SOMOS Global Volunteer Coordinator, wherein she is responsible for cultivating relationships and creating volunteer events with non-profit organizations that align with our Citizen Verizon pillars. These volunteer events and skill-based engagements positively impact our Latino communities.
Lorraine enjoys spending time giving back to the community, especially in ways that foster the growth, development and empowerment of children. Her most recent contributions include serving as a HISPA (Hispanics Inspiring Students’ Performance and Achievement) Role Model and Imagine Day Participant.
Lorraine and her husband are the proud parents of six amazing children and live in New York.
LUCY PÉREZ
Senior Partner
Lucy Pérez is a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company and co-leads McKinsey’s Diversity & Inclusion efforts across North America. She sponsors McKinsey’s Hispanic Leadership Academy (16,000+ Hispanic executives to date). Lucy authored multiple reports on Latino economic mobility and is deeply committed to helping organizations enable sustainable and inclusive growth. She is a Board member of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable and sits on the advisory boards of the Aspen Institute’s Latinos in Society program and the Women’s Health Innovation Summit.
ROSELYN FERNANDEZ
Vice President, Deputy Branch Manager
Roselyn Fernandez is a Vice President and Deputy Branch Manager for BNP Paribas Fortis New York Branch. She is responsible for the day-to-day management of the bank’s United States activities and control functions. Previously, she was a Vice President in the Regulatory & Controls Oversight Group for six years, also at BNP Paribas. Roselyn possesses a wealth of knowledge and expertise acquired over 18 years in the financial services sector.
Roselyn immigrated to the United States with her family from the Dominican Republic over 25 years ago. Growing up in the Dominican Republic and transitioning to life in the United States presented many challenges that she overcame and which have contributed to the well-rounded professional she is today. Her personal journey has fueled her commitment to pay it forward and work with young immigrant students who may be experiencing some of the same challenges. Roselyn serves as a mentor to interns and graduates who participate in the various programs offered by BNP Paribas such as Year Up, CUNY-BNPP Global Finance Fellowship and other outreach programs servicing underserved and underrepresented communities.
Roselyn takes an active role in many CSR and DEI initiatives. She serves as the Co-Chair and Talent Acquisition Lead for the BNP Paribas Hispanic Employee Resource Group, HOLA. In this role she continues to focus on partnering with the bank on the attraction, retention and development of Latinx talent. All her efforts and contributions have been recognized with her induction to the BNP Paribas Leaders for Tomorrow program.
Roselyn earned a Bachelor’s of Arts in Criminology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She is married and proud mother of three.
YADIEL AYALA
Lead SQL & Tableau Developer, Distribution Engineering
Yadiel Ayala has worked at Con Edison for 15 years. He currently serves as a lead SQL database and Tableau visualizations developer on the Distribution Engineering team. Previously, Yadiel worked as an educator teaching various courses in mathematics, including advanced placement calculus and physics. In his spare time, he teaches Salsa and plays instruments like the bongos and trombone.