Coro Keynotes Barclays' Hispanic Heritage Event

Coro was the keynote speaker this week for the 3^rd annual Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration at Barclays. The speech was a combination of Coro’s personal story of overcoming adversity and achievement, combined with tech trends in the financial industry and useful advice for participants.

“Ariel was a great speaker – very engaging and funny. I thought his way of reimagining adversity as an opportunity to innovate was very inspiring.”

Nicole - Barclays Bank

The Journey

Coro shared his personal story on how, when he was just a teenager, he built a homemade satellite dish to watch the forbidden TV channels that the government was using to inform and entertain tourists in the government-run hotels. He goes on to recount how he came to the United States when he was only 18 years old without speaking the language and how he overcame adversity to become a successful systems engineer working for a Fortune 100 company and how this was a segue to becoming the top Hispanic expert on network television commenting about technology and science. Coro’s stories captivated the audience and brought relatability to his journey for audience participants.

After sharing his personal story, Coro also made some broader points which are relevant for anyone in today’s hyper-connected society.

Challenge Your Teams and Yourself Personally

Without a meaningful challenge, there is no need to innovate. Find an audacious goal, a competitor to beat, a problem to solve or anything that can bring your team together. Having to overcome an obstacle can bring a team together and create the kind of commitment that many organizations today lack.

Diversity Propels Growth

It’s known that embracing diversity is good for business. Firms that have a good combination of inherent and acquired diversity in their workforce, are 45% likelier to grow their market share and 70% more likely to have captured a new market.

Becoming Super Resilient

There was a studyconducted by LinkedIn where researchers analyzed the career paths of over450,000 LinkedIn members and found that having diverse job functions in an industry, such as finance and marketing, provides a better understanding of the overall operation of the business. Each additional job function held, shortened the path to the C-suite by 3 years.

The Technology Assault

Technology in general, software and now artificial intelligence, are ubiquitous in the banking industry. Startups are working hard to disrupt banking and the application of the blockchain has the potential to transform our use and perception of currency. With behemoths like Facebook launching themselves into initiatives like cryptocurrencies, banks and governments are nervously watching the outcome instead of leading the charge.

About Hispanic Heritage Month

Hispanic Heritage Month is commemorated annually in theUnited States to celebrate and honor the remarkable contributions made by Hispanicsand Americans whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Centraland South America. Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15thto October 15^th.

About Barclays

Barclays is a transatlantic consumer bank founded in theUnited Kingdom, older than the United States and the Bank of England. The U.S. division,Barclays US Consumer Bank is one of the fastest-growing top 10 credit card issuers and online banks in the United States. They are a credit card issuer for top brandslike: American Airlines, the NFL and Uber.

The event was organized by HOLA, the Hispanic ProfessionalsNetwork Organizing and Leading career development and cultural awareness.