Latinas in Beauty Celebrates First Anniversary With Advisory Board

As Latinas in Beauty marks its first anniversary, the industry organization is looking ahead — and appointing an advisory board to set the course.

The nonprofit industry organization, which was relaunched last year by Nadine Tapia, Emily Perez and Margarita Arriagada, is fully underway with its Equity Pledge, newly launched accelerator program and now, a new advisory board of industry executives.

For the cofounders, all of those efforts ladder up to the central mission of providing access to resources and support to Latine beauty professionals in all facets of the industry.

“Latinas in Beauty started five years ago out of a personal mission to unite Latinas and create opportunities to provide access to the network, education and resources that we need to achieve both professional and entrepreneurial goals,” said Perez. “The three of us relaunched in 2024 and together, we’ve been championing this community.”

Part of the organization’s mission is a pledge for equity, “which calls on industry CEOs to commit to advancing Latinas across the industry,” said Perez, adding that they’ve also launched a membership program, which has roughly 160 members.

The equity pledge doesn’t have specific targets, and Arriagada said that was intentional. “We wanted to ensure that this was not performative, and that we understand how nuanced and challenged we are,” Arriagada said. “We wanted to be driving partnership to understand and customize and work with the retailers, organizations and how we can move the needle. It’s driven really strong dialogue and engagement.”

In partnership with Pepperdine University, Tapia’s alma mater, the organization also launched the Beauty Bravura Accelerator Program.

“We wanted to get that off the ground to show our support with the early-stage beauty brands that are out there that have not had access, whether it be education, capital, supply chain or marketing and all of the support that’s needed,” Tapia said. “We were able to bring in 13 early-stage brands and six professionals in the industry, and all of them were in our first cohort this year.”

Those efforts have not been hampered by broader diversity, equity and inclusion rollbacks in the beauty industry. “The reality is that our platform is all-inclusive. Our north star is the Latina beauty community, but our organization and platform includes anyone that is interested in joining,” Arriagada said. “The solution is not just having more Latino brands [on the] shelf. The solution is figuring out how we support all our professionals across the industry, allow them to thrive, and create an environment to foster their growth.”

Enter the organization’s new advisory board, which includes retail veteran Maria Salcedo, Kitsch founder Cassandra Morales Thurswell, Bansk Beauty’s Reuben Carranza, Patrick Ta Beauty’s Kimberly Villatoro, The Opt-In’s Aurora Archer, #WeAllGrow Latina’s Ana Flores, and others.

“Striving to achieve all of this just makes really good business sense as well,” Salcedo said. “When you look at Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they are the most ethnically diverse and have the highest percentage of Hispanic consumers than any other part of the population. That’s going to be driving consumption and the choice in the coming years.”

Added Villatoro, “What this organization has done and has given us as board members is community. You know that these people are here, you have access to them, and you have access to each other. Particularly for me, a priority was investing in educational, career leadership development opportunities for young Latinos in this industry. And that, I think, is just access that leads the way to opportunity.”