I recently spent the day on Capitol Hill for the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute (CHLI) “Future Leaders Conference” that was held in the Russell Senate Office Building. CHLI is a fantastic organization with a mission dedicated to fostering awareness of the diversity of thought, heritage, interests and views of Americans of Hispanic and Portuguese descent. As a former Hill intern and Capitol Hill staff alum of Hispanic descent (my father emigrated from Perú), being able to participate in the event meant a lot.
Elected leaders from both sides of the aisle including Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX), Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), and Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ) came to offer insights on issues of the day and words of wisdom to conference attendees which consisted of mostly interns spending their summer in Washington.
There were insightful panels with leaders from corporations such as Accenture, Google, Bloomberg, and T-Mobile, just to name a few.
I was honored to participate on the “Keeping a Healthy Wallet” panel as part of the conference. We fielded questions on topics ranging from how to manage student loan debt, creating a budget (and how to make small changes that will help), to negotiating a salary after receiving a job offer.
All in all, it was a nice diversion from the daily grind to take a walk back down memory lane—but most importantly, to hopefully have imparted a small piece of advice to future leaders on the rise: it’s never too early to start budgeting, saving, and ultimately planning for your future that will be here before you know it.