Corporate Cafecito

☕🤎 If your Employee Resource Group disappeared tomorrow, what would your company actually lose? That's a question worth thinking about! We're back with Dr. Robert Rodriguez for Part 2 of our conversation, and Carlos and I are talking about the future of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). I've known Robert for years, and one thing I've always appreciated is how he challenges us...

Have you ever felt like you had to hide a part of who you are just to fit in at work? Imagine being told not to bring up "the Hispanic stuff" because it might affect your career. Well, that's exactly what happened to our guest this week, Dr. Robert Rodriguez. I've known Robert for years, and I've always admired the work he's done for our community. He's helped op...

I still trust people too quickly sometimes. And you know what? I’m not going to change that. 🤎 I've been disappointed. I've trusted people who didn't protect what I shared with them. And I've learned some difficult lessons along the way. But I also know that I would be letting myself down if I allowed those experiences to change who I am and how I show up for others. This week...

Familia, we’re back! ☕🤎 We took a little break, but we're back with a conversation that couldn't be more relevant, especially with how quickly the world around us is changing! This week, Carlos and I are talking about something that has been so important in our own journeys: SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING. And one line from our conversation really says it all: “It’s okay to feel stupid. It’s n...

If you have been listening to Corporate Cafecito for a while, you may remember that Sergio was one of our early guests. Back then, he was already talking about where AI was headed and some of it honestly sounded hard to imagine. Well... here we are. So I asked him to come back and tell me what he is seeing now. We talked about jobs, AI agents, what college students should be learning, lawyers, jud...

Angie Rey Kaiser of FluenTea  joined me this week. Our conversation started with AI, entrepreneurship, and language learning, but what really stayed with me was her journey back to her cultura. Growing up Mexican American without speaking Spanish fluently, Angie carried a question so many people understand: Am I Mexican enough? Then, after nearly 40 years, she returned to Mexico and reunited with...

We’re back, familia. ☕✨ Does this time of year feel a little like back-to-school season for adults? The calendars start filling up. Routines come back. We pull out those goals we made months ago and suddenly realize there is still time to decide how we want to finish the year. After our summer break, we are back at the cafecito table talking about something we both needed too: getting back into...

Support the show If you’d like to join Nallely y Carlos for a conversation, collaborate, or suggest a topic that matters to our community, we would love to hear from you. This podcast centers real conversations that move culture and careers forward. Visit www.corpcafecito.com/contact-us or email admin@corpcafecito.com . Elevar Development , founded by Nallely Suárez Gass , helps professionals and...

What if the next chapter of your career is not full-time, but fully aligned? In this episode of Corporate Cafecito , Nallely and Carlos are talking about fractional work, what it means, why it is growing, and why so many professionals are starting to see it as more than just a backup plan. Fractional CFOs, COOs, CHROs, consultants, strategists, and operators are stepping into companies for a seaso...

Michele Garcia is back on Corporate Cafecito, and this conversation goes deeper. So grab your pan dulce, cafecito, y ganas de escuchar una conversación bien buena. ☕🥐 Michele Garcia is back on Corporate Cafecito, and this episode gives us another side of her story. We talked about her work on ABC 20/20 as a true crime subject matter expert, her career as a detective, motherhood, leadership, and...

✨☕️ She’s back, and honestly, this conversation stayed with me in such a real way. 🤎 Michele Martinez came back to Corporate Cafecito, and this time we talked about something that so many of us carry quietly: what it feels like to be Latina and not speak Spanish. 🇲🇽💬 That shame. That hesitation. That feeling of wondering if you are “Latina enough” because you were never taught the language, or...

She never left, familia. We just refilled the cafecito.  Michele Garcia stayed with me for part two of our Corporate Cafecito conversation, and I’m so grateful she did. What started as a conversation about her career in law enforcement became something much deeper. We talked about what it means to serve for more than 25 years, to carry the weight of difficult work, to be a Latina in spaces where w...

Hola Familia! Grab your cafecito ☕ this is one of those conversations you don’t rush through. Today’s episode of Corporate Cafecito is live 🎙️ and I had the chance to sit down with Michele Garcia. I went into this thinking we were going to talk about her career, 25 years in law enforcement, homicide, sex crimes and we did, but it became something more. We talked about what comes with that kind of...

After my first conversation with Michelle Martinez, I knew I wanted her back on the podcast. There was something about the way she talks about connection that stayed with me. So I invited her back, and this time the conversation went even deeper. What I appreciate about Michelle is that she doesn’t talk about connection in a surface way. She talks about it in a way that makes you pause and really...

Alex Miranda came to Chicago planning to stay for six months. Fourteen years later, he’s still here. We had him on Corporate Cafecito this week, and I went into the conversation thinking we were going to talk about marketing. We did, but it ended up being more about people than anything else. One thing he said really stuck with me. We spend so much time thinking about logos, colors, websites…all t...

Some conversations stay with you. This was one of them. I had the opportunity to sit down with Michelle Martinez, and what I thought would be a light conversation turned into something much deeper. We talked about work, not the kind we put on our resumes, but the kind we feel every day, and if we’re being honest, work feels heavy right now. Not because we don’t care and not because we’re not capab...

Let’s talk about something that’s been sitting heavy for so many people lately… This season right now… it’s heavy. The job search feels longer. The silence feels louder. And the rejection? It hits deeper than we like to admit. In this week’s episode, we sat down and talked about what so many of us are going through but not always saying out loud…  ✨ the emotional toll  ✨ the identity shift  ✨ t...

Familia… can I be honest with you for a moment? 💛 There have been times in my life where I felt like I had to choose between my career… and my family. This week’s cafecito wasn’t just another conversation. It was one of those moments where I found myself reflecting on my own journey… as a woman, as a Latina, as a professional… and as someone who has had to make hard choices along the way. When I...

This week on Corporate Cafecito, I had the opportunity to sit down with Chicago native, leadership coach, and author Isaias Mercado to talk about his new book releasing today, March 10th: 📚 The 10 F Words of Feedback During our conversation, he said something that really stayed with me: “Feedback should be a roadmap, not a verdict.” Think about that for a moment. So many of us experience feedback...

🔥 FAMILIA… THIS ONE IS FOR YOU. 🔥 If you want to elevate in corporate spaces, preparation is your edge. Not luck. Not vibes. Preparation. In this episode, Carlos and I talk about why showing up prepared changes everything. ✨ It builds trust. ✨ It gives you calm confidence. ✨ It makes you flexible, not flustered. ✨ It shifts how people see you. And let’s be honest… as Latinos, we do not alway...

In moments like this, when immigration conversations feel heavy and uncertain, it becomes even more important to center lived experience. This week on Corporate Cafecito, Nallely sits down with Reyna Grande , who crossed the border at nine years old as an undocumented child. She shares what that journey felt like. Being caught twice. Hiding from helicopters. Running across a freeway in the dark. A...

Today’s Corporate Cafecito episode is live, and I’m bringing Marie Quintana back because her journey cannot be contained in a single conversation. In this episode, we go deep into the corporate chapters that shaped her leadership. From choosing systems engineering at IBM before laptops were even a thing, to leading complex transformations at PepsiCo during major acquisitions, to building what beca...

Chicago is frozen right now. ❄️☕ Chicago is frozen right now.  Negative digits over the weekend, snow on the ground, and one of those mornings where everything feels a little slower. The kind of day where you wrap your hands around your mug and sit with your cafecito instead of rushing through it. That kind of morning invites reflection. Because in this episode, we talk about trust . Not the buzz...

We couldn’t imagine a more meaningful way to begin 2026. Our first guest of the year on Corporate Cafecito is Marie Quintana . Marie is a Cuban immigrant, CEO of Quintana Group, strategic advisor, executive coach, board director, and author. Long before ERGs, before representation became a strategy, she was building, leading, and opening doors in corporate America. From IBM to PepsiCo to serving a...

We made it through 2025. That alone matters. As we step into 2026, this episode of Corporate Cafecito is about choosing how we move forward. Not rushing. Not reacting. Choosing with intention. This conversation is an honest look at what last year required from us and what it actually gave back. What truly moved you forward in 2025? What quietly drained your time, energy, or headspace? What are you...