Maria Cadenas

Born in Mexico City and growing up in California, Maria Cadenas has had the advantage of living and traveling across Mexico and the United States. Some of her most treasured memories come from the annual trips across Mexico during the holidays to visit her grandparents.

Cadenas left California for Wisconsin to pursue a dual degree in Creative Writing and Business Administration at Beloit College. During her undergraduate experience she studied the European Union and Spanish Literature in Seville, Spain and was selected as a Kemper Scholar, which exposed her to various roles within the insurance industry all across the country, including Seattle, Philadelphia, and the Chicago area.

After graduation she developed her business strategy and organizational analysis as a consultant for Accenture. Soon after 9/11, she left Accenture to serve as the Associate Director of the American Civil Liberties of Wisconsin and later joined Cream City Foundation as their Executive Director where she developed local business networks, corporate partnerships, and youth homelessness initiatives with a focus on LGBT populations across southeastern Wisconsin.

Cadenas earned her MBA from Alverno College and returned to California in 2015 to join Driscoll's, the world’s largest marketer and distributor of berries. As the Senior Community Investment Manager, she oversaw philanthropic programmatic strategy focused on the company’s philanthropic investment in rural economic development through an investment in farmworkers, employee-led volunteerism, and product donations.

A Women's Media Center Progressive Women's alumna, she is the current Executive Director of Santa Cruz Community Ventures, a nonprofit focused on developing compassionate and equitable local economies that contribute to the region’s wellbeing.

Maria lives in Santa Cruz, California.

She tweets from @mariacadenas.