What started out as two socially-minded entrepreneur’s idea to foster, promote and highlight the beauty, power and diversity of young Latino entrepreneurs has blossomed into a bona fide movement—one that’s capturing the hearts and minds of some of the world’s leading multinational brands.

When best friends Michael Watson and Pablo Segarra, both of Puerto Rican descent, were growing up together in the Bronx, New York, they never envisioned spearheading an organization helping Latino Gen X and Gen Z professionals establish closer ties with each other…and their origins through travel, tech, music and other cultural platforms. This is exactly what Watson, a former Global Director of a Fortune 500 company, and Segarra, a retired New York City police officer, have accomplished amid long-standing careers advocating for the Latin American and Caribbean community and culture and, more specifically, going over-and-above to advance young Latino entrepreneurship. This lamenting that, despite representing a significant sector of the U.S. population, this group of professionals disproportionally represents less than 5% of the U.S. population although the majority of Hispanics in the nation—a full 61%—are Millennials according to the Pew Research Center.

Case in point is Watson’s current endeavor as CEO of Ventyour Inc.—the holdings company of the LatinX Travel Club young Latino entrepreneurship advocacy organization that he co-founded with Segarra.  Despite their strength in numbers, it has been well-reported that Hispanic Millennial small business owners face unfortunate challenges that are “unique to their age and cultural demographic groups” like staffing, scaling, accessing capital and lack of opportunity-creating personal contacts or relationships.

Read the full article about young Latino entrepreneurs by Merilee Kern at Thrive Global.