Pahara Aspen fellows at Azafrán Park
Pahara Institute
Aspen Institute

NATIONAL ENGAGEMENT

Pahara-Aspen Education Leadership Fellowship

Pictured: Pahara Aspen Fellows, Reunion in Nashville, TN, October 2018

In 2015, I was selected for the Pahara-Aspen Education Leadership Fellowship, a two-year program of The Pahara Institute and the Aspen Institute that "seeks to strengthen and sustain diverse, high potential leaders who are reimagining public education."

As a Pahara Aspen Fellow, I am now a lifetime member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, “an international cadre of entrepreneurial, values-driven leaders who are driving creative and impactful efforts to solve some of the most difficult challenges facing our communities and global society.”

As my leadership venture, which all Aspen fellows commit to complete within five years of our program experience, I launched the Mosaic Fellowship for leaders of color.

International Engagement

Spokesperson for U.S. Civil Rights Coalition in Germany

In 2012, I represented UnidosUS (then the National Council of La Raza) and was spokesperson for a coalition of US-based unions and civil rights groups who attended Daimler AG’s annual shareholders meeting in Berlin, Germany, to voice concern for an Alabama law that legalized racial profiling and targeted immigrants. I was asked to address the more than 8,000 shareholders attending the meeting, urging Daimler executives to live up to corporate ethics and denounce a racist law in a state where Daimler produced its cars. As part of my prepared remarks, I said “Daimler has remained silent, even while one of its own Mercedes-Benz executives was arrested and jailed for carrying only his German identification card. The law must be repealed and Daimler is one of the few actors in the state with the power to make the state Legislature listen."

Transatlantic Migration Study Tour

In 2015, I returned to Germany as co-host of a delegation of U.S. Latino leaders in a Transatlantic Migration Study Tour co-sponsored by the Heinrich Böll Foundation-North America and UnidosUS to promote dialogue between U.S. and German leaders on issues related to immigrant, refugee and integration policy. We visited refugee centers and met with civil society leaders and elected officials at the federal, state and local levels in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Leipzig and Stuttgart.

You can read the group's reflection here.

RENATA SOTO

Costa Rican-born social entrepreneur based in Nashville

NATIONAL ENGAGEMENT

Pahara-Aspen Education Leadership Fellowship

Harvard Business School | Young American Leaders Program

UnidosUS | Board of Directors

UnidosUS Action Fund | Board of Directors

International Engagement

Spokesperson for U.S. Civil Rights Coalition in Germany

Transatlantic Migration Study Tour

Center for American Progress | US-Mexico Leaders Initiative

German Marshall Fund | Marshall Memorial Fellowship