Hispanic Heritage Month: Supporting Hispanic Business Owners

Building a network of support

Opportunities for entrepreneurs

The Northeast Ohio Hispanic Center for Economic Development's mission is to ensure economic upward mobility for the predominantly Hispanic-Latino residents in their community. Their most recent project, CentroVilla25, is a re-imagined warehouse which will serve as a business and cultural hub in Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton neighborhood.

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[Music in background throughout]

I am Brown. I’m gay. I’m short. I’m Puerto Rican. And I’m very, very proud of all of that. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what you believe in. Just be you.

My name is Josh Sanabria. I’m a veterinarian here in Dallas, Texas, and I am the owner at Isla Veterinary Boutique Hospital.

On screen copy:
Dr. Josh Sanabria
Owner
Isla Veterinary Boutique Hospital
Bank of America customer

We’re not going to be just your typical veterinary hospital. We’re going to elevate that experience.

Growing up in Puerto Rico was very unique. I was five, six years of age, and I knew I was going to be a vet. I brought tons of animals back home, and I loved it. It was like a little zoo, you know? It was my happy place.

I had to come from nothing, you know, to be able to achieve things. Because if I was spoon-fed everything, then what was there to achieve? Financial limitations, educational limitations - I think that was actually a blessing.

I decided to come to the States from Puerto Rico to vet school. My first language is Spanish, so I was studying with my English book and then my dictionary, and it was really challenging. I really thought I was going to fail so many times. I didn’t let that stop me. Once I finished vet school, I went to Las Vegas, Nevada, and then I lived in San Diego for about a year and a half, and from there I came to Dallas, Texas, and I’ve been here for about five years.

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to have my own hospital. We kind of forget about our goals sometimes.

I was very, very busy being a doctor, you know? For me, all it took was this one piece of mail to remind me of my - one of my original goals, which was to have my own veterinary hospital, and that was a piece of mail from Bank of America.

Before I met Alexandra with Bank of America, I was expecting a very formal interaction.

It’s just great to be able to be part of somebody’s journey of starting that practice.

On screen copy:
Alexandra Kohrs
Regional Sales Manager | Vice President
Bank of America Practice Solutions

It felt like, “Hey we’re going to sit down and chat. What’re your goals? How can I help you be part of that?”

We not only just provide the financing piece. We do everything that we can to surround them with the right people, such as CPAs, attorneys, space finders.

Once Alexandra called me to let me know that Bank of America had approved my loan, definitely that moment, um -- it was important to me.

All you need is a perfect, amazing team that will guide you through the right steps to be successful, and that’s what Bank of America was for me.

I see myself in the future continuing to fight, not only for animals, but also for the people around me, especially my LGBTQ+ people. As a Latino person, as a Puerto Rican, I want for that community, family feeling to be part of what I do.

As Latino men and women, we need to be empowered in knowing that it doesn’t matter what it is we want, we can achieve it. It is okay to clean houses. It is okay to be a gardener. But there are different roles that we can pursue. I have friends that are teachers. I have friends that are doctors. We may have big ambitions. That might be true. So what? And if we don’t have a role model in a certain field, how about we become that first one? So get to work.

End Card:

What would you like the power to do?^®

Bank of America^®logo

Learn more: bankofamerica.com/sbr

On screen disclosures:

Bank of America and the Bank of America logo are registered trademarks of Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved. All other logos and company names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners and are used pursuant to license. Bank of America, N.A. Member FDIC. © 2022 Bank of America Corporation.

[End of transcript]

Building his dream

Since the age of six, Dr. Josh Sanabria has had an unwavering love of animals. So when the opportunity to open his own veterinarian clinic, Isla Veterinary Boutique Hospital, came knocking, with the help of Bank of America he was able to make his lifelong dream a reality.

[Music in background throughout]

I’m Tina Fears, and I am the founder at Stage Ready.

On screen copy:
Tina Fears
Founder
Stage Ready
Bank of America Customer

Well, Stage Ready does everything from producing your events to helping you create digital content for your new product.

I'm a business owner, and I'm also a performer. So dance is important to me, but it also reflects the way that I run my business.

When I’m choreographing or creative directing, I want to think about what impact I want to make.

We were in the middle of a pandemic. And that impacted, you know, the event industry. And this was a time where my business was pivoting.

I wanted to figure out what the future looked like for Stage Ready. The Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell was a game changer.

My name is Sharon Miller, and I’m the President of Small Business at Bank of America.

On screen copy:
Sharon Miller
President of Small Business
Bank of America

We know how important women entrepreneurs are to the country. One of the biggest barriers is having the right resources and the right access to capital. And that's why this program is so important because it really focuses on helping women understand when it's right to access capital, and then resources.

90% of people that have enrolled within this coursework also identify as people of color. And so we are really getting to heart of helping women and people of color across all of our programs.

Cornell is the right university to partner with us on this program because of its focus on entrepreneurship.

I’m Deborah Streeter. I’m a faculty member at Cornell University.

On screen copy:
Deborah Streeter
Faculty Director
The Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell

Bank of America and Cornell shared the goal of equipping women to be successful in entrepreneurship. The certificate program is an online, virtual program. We have a course in legal issues, negotiation, the entrepreneurial presence, and we knew it would be very important for the women in the program to understand the double bind. Women are stuck between having to be nice and the need to be powerful.

The program told us you can anticipate this, and this is how you can pivot around that and overcome it. Knowing who I am as a woman, and knowing the value that I bring to the table, really reinforced who I am as a business owner today.

We really want this program to be accessible to a wide range of women. Because Latinas play such a strong role in startups in this country, we made the decision to translate it into Spanish.

Initially when the program began, we had 50,000 slots for enrollment, and because of such demand, we've now increased that to a hundred thousand available, for entrepreneurs to go through these courses.

I was really encouraged by the fact that Bank of America provided this program at no cost, because to me that spoke to the fact that they understood what the journey of entrepreneurship looks like. After completing the program, banking with Bank of America was kind of second nature.

The onboarding process at Bank of America was one of the easiest I've experienced. To be able to go through the process of setting up an account, and it not be a headache, that gives me more time to go make money with my business.

We work every day to help people really live out their financial lives and their dreams. And especially with business owners, it’s important that we educate. We have two thousand small business bankers in our financial centers working every day with business owners.

We have to give space for people to grow, and they have to be empowered to do so. All of the young women who have worked with me, maybe came on as interns, they now have their own businesses. And that’s how we grow this idea of entrepreneurship in this country.

Our relationship with Bank of America has enabled us to help so many thousands of women. It's just really impressive.

Helping women business owners, and empowering women to really move forward. It moves our entire communities forward.

On screen copy:
What would you like the power to do?

End page:

Bank of America^®logo

On screen copy:

Learn more: bankofamerica.com/sbr

On screen disclosures:

Bank of America and the Bank of America logo are registered trademarks of Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved. All other logos and company names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners and are used pursuant to license. Bank of America, N.A. Member FDIC © 2022 Bank of America Corporation.

Accessible educational resources

Entrepreneur Tina Fears took her business to the next level with the skills she learned at the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell. This no-cost program, with curriculum available in Spanish, is designed to help business owners meet the challenges of today’s market.

Lending a hand

In the spring of 2020, Small Business Strong, a coalition of 17 organizations, came together to provide valuable resources and free personalized advice to struggling small businesses across Boston. This was a game changer for many entrepreneurs like Veronica Robles, a Boston-based mariachi singer and musician who was able to retool her business to be more resilient.

Every move matters when it comes to your business

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Building his dream

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