Leticia is the proud daughter of immigrant farmworkers from Guanajuato, Mexico, and grew up in a small rural town in Fresno, CA. She is driven by pride in her family and Mexican culture alongside her embrace of innovation and sustainability. She is equally able to blend the cultural and regenerative practices of her rural heritage with social impact investment and business strategies to create a more equitable and just world.
She received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master’s degree from the University of San Diego. She has been selected to several prestigious fellowships and certificate programs, including most recently the Yale Center for Business and Environment’s Financing and Deploying Clean Energy program.
Leticia’s work has focused on solving complex environmental, economic, and social problems and co-creating innovative solutions. Currently, Leticia is the Portfolio Manager for Olamina Fund at Candide Group, an impact investment firm. Most recently, Leticia served as the first Central California Regional Lead Advisor of the California Office of the Small Business Advocate, a position she was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom. During her term she led strategy development for the state of California’s small business ecosystem-building work, access to affordable capital and diverse entrepreneurship, and innovation portfolios, and created a model across California. In previous positions, she has worked alongside organic small-scale coffee producers and indigenous women’s textile cooperatives in Mexico, designed policy strategies for investments in long-term water, renewable energy and clean energy projects in low-income rural communities as well as managed a multi-million-dollar social impact investment portfolio.