CEO Tanya Menendez Blazes Trail for Latina Women in Tech

Snowball Wealth CEO Tanya Menendez is blazing a trail for Latina women in tech. 
 
Part of my role as a Latina entrepreneur is showing people what’s possible and showing other Latinas that it’s possible to start a tech company and raise venture capital and begin creating technology-focused solutions within our own problems and within our own communities,” she said.
 
Menendez left her job in finance to start her first company in 2011. Now the 31-year-old is the co-founder and CEO of Snowball Wealth, and app that helps users tackle student debt so they can start saving and investing.
 
“I realized that it was much easier to build debt in America than it is to build wealth,” she explained. “And that’s what really inspired me to begin a company that basically helps us think long term.
 
The growth rate of Latinx businesses in the U.S. has outpaced the growth of all other groups—meanwhile only 1% of tech executives are Latinas.
 
“It’s important for women to color to be leaders in technology, to work within technology, because technology is really defining the future of that our society looks like,” Menendez explained. “And if we don’t have a role to play in that, the inequalities that we’re facing right now are only going to begin to worsen.”
 
Menendez says more funding and better company cultures could help more Latinx people succeed in tech.
 
“One big part of creating change within the technology industry is democratizing networks and democratizing access,” she said.