Claudia Romo Edelman - We Are All Human - the Hispanic Pledge

This week I had the pleasure of talking to Claudia Romo Edelman, CEO and founder of We Are All Human foundation. I was impressed by her vision, ambition and experience and would like to share what I learned about her and her organization.

Claudia has over 25 years of marketing experience in social issues and is a Mexican diplomat. She has worked for organizations such as the United Nations and UNICEF. It is through her experience that she learned what she needed to do to unite Hispanics around the world and why her organization We Are All Human was born.

"Hispanics are powerful in paper but they think small. We created We Are All Human to advance diversity, equation and equality emphasizing inclusion. Our goal is to move the world from tolerance to acceptance," said Claudia.

Claudia and I at the Radisson Blue Hotel in Chicago

Claudia came to America four years ago after extensive work in Europe where she spent 25 years of her life. In addition, she is also the editor at large for Thrive Global and Thrive Global Hispanic. She is originally from Mexico and her passion is uniting Hispanics around the world. "We will talk only about only what unites us. We already know about our differences," said Claudia in regards to Hispanics and her Chicago summit.

In order to achieve the goal of inclusion We Are All Human hosted its first Chicago Hispanic Summit on April 26 where 45 companies signed the Hispanic pledge. Among the companies who signed are Microsoft, Unilever, Nielsen, Edelman, KIND, EY and Mars, Incorporated. The commitment of the pledge is "to make a commitment to create inclusive workplace environments and to take positive actions to hire, promote, retain, and celebrate Hispanics as employees, customers and citizens." This is the role that corporate America can play in elevating the Hispanic community. More summits will take place in Dallas and California as well as internationally.

The Hispanic Promise was launched three months ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in the first ever Hispanics event in Davos aimed to bring attention to global leaders about the potential of the Hispanic community as a growth engine and an essential business opportunity.

"I believe that content helps create awareness. It starts with unifying Hispanics," said Claudia.

Claudia shares an incredible story of survival. Born with a little chance of making it past 3-years-old, Claudia proved to everyone that she has a mission and a reason why she survived. Despite of being told that she is a co-pilot by her father and everyone else she proved to herself and her children that she can be and is a leader. "It took me two and a half years. It is hard to step up and speak up and take off your mask and expose yourself but we need to all do it. I need to be a pilot. It is stepping forward. It is more comfortable to be in the quiet but we have to move."

Claudia grew up with two different households as her parents divorced but she learned how to see people as human and not for their title or role they play because of the people she was around - her engineer father and actress mother. "Growing up and seeing presidents and CEOs and then dancers it made me have to be adaptable as a kid and to be comfortable everywhere. That made me see people for people," she said.

"We Are all Human is a noise maker machine. We create content. We did a research and an insight we found are that 77 percent of Hispanics have no idea of contribution to their country. It is a disaster and we need to do better," said Claudia who also shared that most Hispanics see the American dream differently and changed. "61 percent of Hispanics think that the American Dream has changed. We need to bring their voices together and bring back the American Dream."

For more on We Are All Human and how you can get involve din uniting the Hispanic community, visit: www.WeAreAllHuman.org.