Monika has dedicated the last 20 years of her life to her passion: pursuing societal transformation through entrepreneurial success by providing capital and expanding opportunity to promising entrepreneurs, all of which can bring significant returns to investors and economic development impact. Monika is also the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Small Business Community Capital.
Altura Capital is an investment management firm that provides institutional investors and strategic partners the opportunity to invest in and scale high-performing small and diverse investment firms and businesses, that supply value added goods and services to Corporate America. SBCC is an SBIC Impact fund with $147 million under management that provides debt and equity capital to small and mid-sized companies with $1 million plus Ebitda, focusing on women and minority owned firms and entrepreneurs located in LMI communities.
SBCC and Altura are playing a pivotal role in developing an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors, advisors and corporations working together to harness opportunities in these markets.
During the last recession, under the leadership of Monika, Altura provided valuable asset management, manager of manager and programmatic architecture, which included participation in the creation and overseeing of the CPP and PPIP programs, in facilities that managed north of $5.4 billion dollars, for both government and institutional investors. Lessons from management in turbulent market conditions led to Monika’s conviction that small and diverse businesses needed much stronger financial solutions and market architecture including ecosystems and access to corporate markets, which led to the creation of Small Business Community Capital, one of the very few Latina led SBIC funds in the country.
Monika and the firms she leads have won numerous awards for their work building financial capacity and strong and 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 HHF Award in Business, the highest honor for Latinos by Latinos.
Monika sits on the Board of Directors for private companies Pasteleria Cidrines and Coastal Painting Company. She also serves on the Board of the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI), the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), the USHCC Foundation, which she Chairs, and the Capital Advisory Board for the Billion Dollar Roundtable (BDR).
Monika has an MBA from Columbia Business School, New York, J.D. from the Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia.
Jay has worked for 31 years in the investment industry, and has worked for more than twenty years in private equity, international investment banking, global financial markets and portfolio management at major firms in New York.
He has extensive experience in investment analysis and research and has been recognized by leading polls as one of the top analysts on Wall Street. He is a regular commentator on international financial markets and investment strategy.
Prior to SBCC he co-founded UniWorld Capital L.P., a $60 million Private Equity fund that invests in lower middle market companies in the United States. Prior to UniWorld, Jay founded Discovery, a boutique investment bank, focusing on the Hispanic Market. Discovery held responsibilities across the spectrum of products within that asset class, including research, investment banking and asset management. He created the first Hispanic index and covered public and private Hispanic companies in the U.S. Prior to that, he was a managing partner and founder of Suala Capital Fund. This private equity company specialized in buyouts in Spain led by Ana Botin, CEO of Santander of Spain. Jay’s career at Suala followed his work for Santander Global Advisors (SGA), Santander’s asset management arm. There, he was responsible for portfolio management and equity research in emerging markets, particularly focused on those of Latin America. Previously, he served as managing director, head of emerging markets equity research and chief Latin American strategist at Santander’s Investment Banking division. He was responsible for building Santander’s equity research business, which achieved Institutional Investor’s top three quality research ranking – the first time ever that Santander was ranked — in just one year.
Prior to Santander, Jay served as director of equity research for Latin America at Salomon Brothers. He was personally ranked “runner-up” by Institutional Investor in the telecommunications sector. Jay also was recognized as one of the top four analysts by Bloomberg’s Analyst Scorecard, in which he competed with analysts from all countries and sectors. Prior to joining Salomon, he worked as an analyst at Smith Barney, first in the healthcare sector and then covering Latin America. He is on the Board of Altura Capital, Cidrines, Coastal, EarthLab, MedX Air, and Lippe Taylor.
Jay holds a Master in Finance (MSF) from Boston College and a B.S. in Civil engineering from the Andes University in Bogotá, Colombia.
Jay has worked for 31 years in the investment industry, and has worked for more than twenty years in private equity, international investment banking, global financial markets and portfolio management at major firms in New York.
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.
Carlos is a US Sailing certified bareboat skipper and enjoys sailing with his family around Biscayne Bay. When not on the water, Carlos enjoys spending as much time as possible outdoors, playing golf or tennis or enjoying a relaxing bike ride.
Judy is motivated by making a positive impact on others. She helped design and launch an award-winning corporate diversity program to increase minority and female hires, expanded corporate charitable and volunteer efforts through a children’s charity that donated more than $35 million to organizations supporting young people, and created and managed a corporate philanthropy program that supports a variety of national charities.
Judy is an executive leader with a proven track record of executing strategic vision and driving organizational performance across business development and human resources functions at private equity and financial services firms.
Before joining Altura, Judy was most recently a founding member of Huntsman Gay Global Capital, where she helped guild the middle market firm’s infrastructure, define the brand, and drive business growth. While there, she developed and executed business building strategies that helped the firm raise a $1.2 billion debut fund and build a top-performing, 60-person firm in four years.
Prior to that, Judy spent eight years at Bain Capital as Head of Global Human Resources. She built and led all human resource strategic plans, measures, and metrics and played an instrumental role in all aspects of the business related to Bain’s expansion, ranging from the opening of six offices around the globe – including Tokyo, Mumbai, and Munich – to growing staff from 80 to 800 people. She managed operations throughout the raising of five funds and the diversification of investment strategy. Judy developed processes to support growth and maintain a cohesive, high-performing culture, leading such initiatives as a unified staffing methodology to build cross-cultural teams, global training, and “360-degree” reviews for all staff.
Earlier in her career, Judy was the Director of Global Human Resources at Wellington Management Company and held senior leadership positions at Putnam Investments and MFS.
She holds a BS from LeMoyne College and an MSA from Boston University. Judy has three sons, plays golf and tennis, and is heavily involved in the golf community. She also volunteers and serves on several boards.