Awards + Recognitions
- In 2020, USA TODAY Network recognized Renata, along with Country music legend Dolly Parton, as one of 10 Tennesseans in “Women of the Century”
- In 2019, the founding senior class of STEM Preparatory High School voted to award Renata one of the inaugural STEM Prep Honorary Degrees for “exemplifying the highest ideals of our institution and serve as role models, educators, change-makers, and leaders of our community's next generation.”
- Siloam Health honored her as the 2019 Amplify Nashville Community Catalyst.
- Renata has been named to the Nashville Business Journal “Power 100,” a list of “the 100 most influential people in Nashville business” in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
- In 2017, the Nashville Public Education Foundation honored Renata with the foundation’s highest honor, the Nelson C. Andrews Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes “a civic, business or political leader in the Nashville community who has made a strong commitment supporting and advocating for public education.”
- The Islamic Center of Nashville honored her with the “Beyond Borders” Award “in recognition of her outstanding contribution to building a more just and inclusive Nashville” in 2017.
- The Tennessean, Nashville’s daily newspaper, recognized Renata as “one of six notable Middle Tennesseans of 2016.”
- The Davidson County Democratic Party presented Renata with The 2015 Jane Eskind Pioneer Award, given annually to a “trailblazer who has advanced the causes of Tennesseans to ever-greater heights.”
- Tennessee State University chose her as a 2015 Woman of Legend & Merit.
- The Nashville Post business magazine recognized her with the 2015 Women of Power award.
- In 2014, the Nashville Scene, a weekly magazine, recognized her as one of “Twenty-five Nashvillians who've shaped the city for the better” over the past 25 years.
- The Nashville Scene chose Renata as the 2013 “Nashvillian of the Year.”
- In 2012, she was inducted into the YWCA Academy of Women of Achievement.
- The Tennessee Titans selected Renata as the recipient of the inaugural NFL Hispanic Heritage Leadership Award in 2011.
- In 2009, the Nashville Symphony recognized her with the Third Annual Edwina Hefner Community Leadership Award, which “recognizes leaders whose community work pay tribute to the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
- In 2008, the Nashville Business Journal selected Renata as a “Woman of Influence.”
- The Nashville Scene in its 2003 “Best of Nashville” edition recognized Conexión Américas as Best Entrepreneurial Venture: “Conexión Américas, thanks in part to the visionary leadership of executive director Renata Soto, over the past 15 months has become the foremost Hispanic service and advocacy organization in Middle Tennessee, if not the entire state.”
- Renata was recognized in the inaugural “30 Under 30” list of the Nashville Post in 2001.
- In 2001, she was invited to be a member of “the Nashville Nine,” nine young Nashvillians brought together for “facilitated civic imagination” to inspire the final and future-looking chapter in Nashville: An American Self-Portrait, edited by John Egerton and E. Thomas Wood.