Harnessing opportunities through leadership

Monika Mantilla

PRESIDENT AND CEO, ALTURA CAPITAL

MANAGING PARTNER, ALTURA IMPACT LOWER MIDDLE MARKET & ALTURA EOZ (ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ZONE) STRATEGIES

Monika has dedicated the last 25 years of her life to her passion: pursuing societal transformation through entrepreneurial success by providing capital and expanding opportunity for promising entrepreneurs.

She is actively involved in public policy dialogues and action-oriented impact initiatives with Government, Corporations, Foundations and Institutional Investors.

Monika Mantilla

PRESIDENT AND CEO, ALTURA CAPITAL

MANAGING PARTNER, ALTURA IMPACT LOWER MIDDLE MARKET & ALTURA EOZ (ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ZONE) STRATEGIES

Monika has dedicated the last 25 years of her life to her passion: pursuing societal transformation through entrepreneurial success by providing capital and expanding opportunity for promising entrepreneurs.

She is actively involved in public policy dialogues and action-oriented impact initiatives with Government, Corporations, Foundations and Institutional Investors.

Monika co-founded Altura Capital in 2005 to allow institutional investors and strategic partners to invest in high-performing small and diverse businesses that supply value-added goods and services to corporate America. In her 30-plus year career, Monika has focused on offering significant returns to investors while delivering valuable economic impact to communities.

In 2012, guided by her conviction that small and diverse businesses needed much stronger financial solutions and access to corporate markets, Monika co-founded Small Business Community Capital, one of the few Latina-led SBIC funds in the United States. SBCC and Altura are playing a pivotal role in developing an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors, advisors and corporations working together to harness opportunities. In 2020 Monika Co-founded the Altura EOZ strategy, one of the few Qualified Opportunity Zone strategies focused on operating companies.

Monika sits on the board of directors for companies including Cidrines, Coastal Painting, 9th Wonder, and is a board observer at Lippe Taylor. She also serves on the board of the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI), where she teaches a capital seminar; the Hispanic Heritage Foundation; the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) and the USHCC Foundation, which she chairs; and serves as a Capital Advisor to the Billion Dollar Roundtable. She is a fellow member of the Aspen Latinos in Society program and the author of a chapter in the book “Advancing U.S. Latino Entrepreneurship.”

Monika and the firms she leads have won numerous awards for their work building financial capacity and strong, scalable businesses in minority and underserved communities. In multiple years, Latino Leaders Magazine recognized her as one of the 101 Most Influential Leaders in Hispanic U.S.A. and one of the Top 15 Latinos in Finance. In 2010 she became the first Latina to ever receive the Hispanic Heritage Foundation Award in Business, the highest honor for Latinos by Latinos.

She has an MBA from Columbia Business School in New York and a J.D. from the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Colombia.

Monika is a trusted advisor to many CEOs, corporations and government agencies, through which she lives her deep belief in the power of collaboration to build stronger communities and companies.

Jay Garcia

CO-FOUNDER ALTURA CAPITAL. MANAGING PARTNER, ALTURA IMPACT LOWER MIDDLE MARKET & ALTURA EOZ (ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ZONE) STRATEGIES

Jay is a regular commentator on international financial markets and investment strategy. He has spent the last 10 years investing in low-moderate-income communities.

Jay Garcia

CO FOUNDER, ALTURA CAPITAL

MANAGING PARTNER, ALTURA IMPACT LOWER MIDDLE MARKET & ALTURA EOZ (ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ZONE) STRATEGIES

Jay is a regular commentator on international financial markets and investment strategy. He has spent the last 10 years investing in low-moderate-income communities.

Jay co-founded Altura Capital in 2005 along with its affiliate fund, Small Business Community Capital (SBCC), in 2012, and Altura EOZ strategy in 2020. He has worked for more than 30 years in the investment industry, with experience in private equity, international investment banking, global financial markets and portfolio management at major New York firms.

Prior to joining SBCC, Jay co-founded UniWorld Capital L.P., a $60 million private equity fund focused on lower middle market companies in the United States. Before that, he founded Discovery, a boutique investment bank focusing on the Hispanic Market. While there, he created the first Hispanic index that covered public and private Hispanic companies in the U.S.

Earlier, Jay was a managing partner and founder of Suala Capital Fund, a private equity firm led by Ana Botin, CEO of Spain’s Santander, that specializes in buyouts in Spain. Previously, he held several positions at Santander, working on portfolio management and equity research in emerging markets, serving as head of emerging markets equity research and chief Latin American strategist at Santander’s Investment Banking division and building the bank’s equity research business. He also led equity research for Latin America at Salomon Brothers.

He serves on the boards of Cidrines, Coastal Painting, EarthLab Holding, 9th Wonder, and is a board observer at Siege Media and Lippe Taylor.

Jay holds a Master’s in Finance (MSF) from Boston College and a B.S. in Civil engineering from the Andes University in Bogotá, Colombia.

Jay is a trusted advisor for many successful entrepreneurs as they look to make strategic decisions about the future of their businesses.

Carlos Signoret

MANAGING PARTNER, ALTURA IMPACT LOWER MIDDLE MARKET

Carlos thoughtfully sponsors diversity, training talented, aspiring investment professionals and actively recruiting alumni of the Robert Toigo Foundation, an organization focused on building stronger, more diverse businesses through the inclusion and advancement of under-represented talent.

Carlos Signoret

MANAGING PARTNER, ALTURA IMPACT LOWER MIDDLE MARKET

Carlos thoughtfully sponsors diversity, training talented, aspiring investment professionals and actively recruiting alumni of the Robert Toigo Foundation, an organization focused on building stronger, more diverse businesses through the inclusion and advancement of under-represented talent.

Carlos has over 25 years of private equity experience, focused on providing growth capital to small businesses. Throughout his career Carlos has actively worked with founder- and family-owned businesses in crafting value-driven growth plans and assisting with building management teams and scalable infrastructure capable of supporting significant growth. His partnership approach drives value with management teams while respecting the entrepreneurial vision of company founders.

In 2003, he co-founded Chicago-based HCP & Co. Inc., a private equity fund created to invest in and manage strategically positioned and growth-oriented companies, operating predominantly in the healthcare services, consumer products, and education industries.

Prior to HCP, Carlos was a Partner at New York-based CM Equity Partners, part of a multi-family office founded in 1925 and engaged in private equity, investment management, and corporate consulting for over 40 years. Before that, Carlos worked at The Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A. in the Corporate Lending and Merchant Banking divisions, and then worked with Chase Capital, the bank’s private equity investment group. He successfully completed Chase’s MBA Credit Training program in New York.

Carlos received a Master’s Degree in Applied Economics, with a concentration in Finance, from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he was a Horace H. Rackham Merit Scholar. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Puerto Rico, where he graduated with the highest distinction.