Gary Acosta is an entrepreneur, public policy advocate, investor, and thought leader passionate about advancing prosperity for Latinos and other underserved communities.
The decision to invite President Barack Obama to the NAHREP Policy Conference last Spring was a decision I made with the NAHREP National Board. Anytime we have a political figure of that stature at one of our events, we know it will stimulate a lot of buzz among our members and stakeholders.
A few weeks ago, Twitter was blowing up when John Leguizamo spoke out against the recent casting of James Franco as Fidel Castro in the independent film ‘Alina of Cuba’. Leguizamo took plenty of heat for his stance and was ridiculed by some including Bill Maher.
L’ATTITUDE 2022 is less than two weeks away. This year’s event includes a concert at Rady Shell; the coolest new concert venue in America according to Forbes magazine. The concert is in partnership with La Musica, and will feature music superstars, Juanes and Farukko.
I am basically on lockdown from now until the NAHREP and L’ATTITUDE conference. This year we have a concert with Farruko and Juanes, a gala with Lin-Manuel Miranda, a basketball game with Manu Ginóbili, and our usual cadre of CEOs, VCs, entrepreneurs, and celebrities.
I had the honor of being the commencement speaker at the UC Irvine School of Business in June. I spoke about expecting the unexpected. I like to take a counterintuitive approach to business and life. I told the audience of 4000 students, faculty, and parents that regardless of how detailed your plans might be, your actual career will probably turn out very different than you expect.
In six weeks L’ATTITUDE will host its fifth annual event in San Diego, September 22 – 25, with another world-class lineup including CEOs, entertainers and some of the biggest names in business, media, sports and politics.
Last week, L’ATTITUDE Ventures closed its first institutional fund, raising over $100 million through a strategic anchor investment by JP Morgan Chase and initial investments from the Trujillo Group and Bank of America. Other key investors in this fund, which is aimed solely at investing in Latina(o)-owned companies with high growth potential, include UC Investments, MassMutual, Barclays, the Royal Bank of Canada, Polaris Limited Partners (Oscar Munoz), Cisco, Nuveen Investments, and Morgan Stanley.
For those of you that read my blog regularly, let me first say, thank you. The overwhelming comments I get from my blog are very positive and supportive. However, some of them make me feel like I have to periodically clarify what I do. As the CEO of NAHREP, I lead the largest Latino business organization in the country.
The Latino wealth gap in America is large. While Latinos have the highest workforce participation rate and are leading homeownership and new business formations, closing the wealth gap has been slow. According to the most recent Fed Survey of Consumer Finances, Latino families have one-fifth of the wealth as the typical Anglo-American family.
When the economy is growing rapidly, companies and consumers have more money to spend. The stronger demand for goods and services can cause prices to rise and inflation to spike. Inflation is not good. The federal government has two levers it can use to slow or stimulate economic activity: taxes and interest rates.