Best Selling Author and Latina Leader
Juana immigrated to the US from Nicaragua and is the first in her family to attend college. She is president of Mestiza Leadership International. Her best-selling book “Salsa, Soul and Spirit – Leadership for a Multicultural Age” won the 2008 International Latino Book Award for leadership and is utilized in over 150 Universities. “The Power of Latino Leadership” is considered seminal work on this topic and received the Nautilus Prize for best multicultural book and the 2014 International Latino Book Award for leadership.
Juana served as advisor to Harvard’s Hispanic Journal on Public Policy, the Kellogg National Fellows Program, as a trustee of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, and the International Leadership Association (ILA). She was initiated into the Colorado Women’s Hall of fame, and in 2009 was named Colorado’s Unique Woman of the Year by the Denver Post and the Women’s Foundation. Juana was bestowed an honorary doctorate from Union University in 2009 and received the Life-Time Achievement Award from The International Leadership Association in 2019. She is the first Latina honored with this prestigious award.
