The HCCW as a National Leader in the new economy

Date:

Thursday, January 26th, 2017
6:00 – 7.30 PM

Venue:

Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Wisconsin

1021 W National Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53204

Jorge Franco is an accomplished leader and innovative chief executive with years of national Hispanic leadership and entrepreneurial and managerial experience driving outsized investment returns in the nation’s small‐ to mid‐sized enterprise (“SME”) sector. He is a low‐ and moderate‐income (“LMI”) consumer financial services and community development expert recognized by senior regulators at the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC and the Federal Trade Commission and at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Mr. Franco serves as the new chairman, president and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin (“HCCW”). He leads the new generation HCCW Economic and Workforce Development Center of Excellence based in Milwaukee, which represents the interests of Wisconsin’s high growth Hispanic business enterprise (“HBE”) sector as well as the State’s high growth Hispanic workforce with an outstanding work ethic. This includes more than 10,000 Latina- and Latino-owned businesses located throughout the State along with the State’s Hispanic population of more than 500,000 individuals who are a key success factor in solving the State’s growing shortage of skilled workers and STEAM1 professionals among other professions to the benefit of employers in need of a diverse workforce to meet market demand. As the statewide leader of the HCCW, he leads and is responsible for the HCCW’s influential local, State and national advocacy and public policy efforts, member business development services, access to capital, procurement and workforce development programs and the HCCW’s proactive economic media message. Along with the HCCW’s team of bilingual high performance professionals, he leads the HCCW Talent Initiative that now includes the training and resettlement of skilled workers in addition to higher education programming to help meet the growing demand for Hispanic graduates in STEAM and other high demand professions. The HCCW serves Wisconsin’s high growth Hispanic small business and workforce sectors out of a growing number of offices located throughout the State including Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Fox Valley, Sheboygan and Wausau with additional offices targeted in numerous other Metropolitan Statistical Areas or “MSAs” throughout the State.

Mr. Franco is a past chairman of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce based in Washington DC, which represents the interests of the nation’s more than 3 million Hispanic-owned businesses. Mr. Franco is an expert in low- and moderate-income or “LMI” consumer microfinance that helps low income consumers gain access to the financial mainstream in a manner that leads to upward economic mobility opportunities for the HCCW’s statewide constituency. He is a past member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Advisory Board on Small Business and is a past chairman of the State’s largest workforce development board now known as the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board. Mr. Franco also served as the chairman who led the public policy and leadership reorganization of the State’s largest anti-poverty organization then known as the Interim Social Development Commission. He is a national low-income consumer and anti-poverty expert who presented on community development public policy at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions on behalf of the Financial Services Roundtable based in Washington DC. Under the HCCW’s leading edge workforce development activities, he is the founder of the HCCW Advanced Manufacturing Partnership. This Partnership’s HCCW Training Initiative is nationally recognized as a leader in solutions to help solve the growing skilled worker shortage in the manufacturing sector that continues to plague the nation’s economy.