BMO is proud to partner with Latino Leaders magazine on the Index500. Now in its third year, the Index continues to showcase the economic influence and impact of Latino entrepreneurs nationwide. 

We recently held an event to celebrate the Latino Leaders Index500, a ranking of the 500 largest Latino-owned businesses in the U.S. by revenue. Eduardo Tobon, Latino Segment Head at BMO, moderated a discussion with CFOs from two of the companies that earned a spot on the Index: Julieta LaMalfa of Canela Media (No. 289), and Ricardo Mendez-Acevedo of KUA (No. 79). 

Check out the ~24-minute episode:   

They shared what they went through on their journeys as successful executives, discussed the importance of corporate governance, and highlighted the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on their current role. A summary of their conversation follows. 

LaMalfa was the first executive to join Canela, a digital media company serving the U.S. Hispanic population, as it neared the end of its Series A round of financing. Even at that early stage, LaMalfa said the company had the foresight to see how much more additional capital it would need. The challenge was balancing Canela’s ambitions with the realities of raising capital.  

“We were trying to be strategic about all of our capital investments and laying out what our runway was going to be,” LaMalfa said. "More importantly, what those milestones within that runway had to be so that we continue growing when the time came to raise more equity. Throughout all of that, I would always go back to my core values, which is equity and commitment. I believe that Canela has and will continue to build something that will continue elevating the profile of the Latino community, and that's something that always kept me kept me going throughout those challenging moments.” 

KUA operates a portfolio of food and beverage companies in the healthy, gourmet and confectionary segments. The plan from the beginning was to acquire small companies with big potential. For Mendez-Acevedo, that meant knowing when to say “no.” 

“One of the first challenges I faced was which one to pick,” he said. “When you have money, or you think you have money, you might get crazy. Other executives were pushing for some acquisitions that they wanted, but as a CFO you have to think thoroughly on what to do.” 

When asked what advice she would offer to other startup CFOs or business owners, LaMalfa emphasized the importance of continuously revisiting your equity story. “Every other month or so, look at the equity story because I believe that it holds you accountable for the business decisions that you're making,” she said. “You have to take risks, but if you want to scale, you often have to rely on investors, and investors want credible stories. And they want to see that whatever you're putting out, you're measuring it correctly. And if you're making mistakes that you're learning from them.  

Mendez-Acevedo recommended investing in your company's corporate governance. “It pays off a lot,” he said. “Corporate governance means audited financials, filing your tax returns on time, audit committees, board meetings. It sounds trivial, but it is not. We have built a very strong reputation based on our corporate governance.” 

For LaMalfa, corporate governance is part of a company’s equity story. “Because your partners also have a brand and credibility in the marketplace, and whoever that partner is in the next round is going to look at that.” 

As Tobon noted, your board directors need to be fully based on meritocracy. “You need the people that are going to help your company for the industry you're in, for the challenges that you have,” he said. “When companies start paying attention to corporate governance, it will have a positive effect that more leaders will benefit from.” 

AI, particularly generative AI, continues to dominate conversations in all kinds of companies. What impact could the technology have on the CFO role? 

LaMalfa acknowledged the power that generative AI tools like ChatGPT have on strategic analysis, such as creating financial models for potential acquisitions. “I'm leveraging it as much as much as I can,” she said. “Creating dashboards whenever we're looking at companies—what kind of business model could they have, what could their monetization model be like?  I'm not by any means an early adopter, but I've had to force myself to start engaging with these tools. You have to engage with them as partners.”