HispanicBusiness

While traditional Hispanic advocacy groups such as the National Council of La Raza, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund focus on civil rights, the New America Alliance is pushing to get Latinos in positions of power in the capital markets -- at groups that invest, regulate the markets and are in top corporate positions.

Even the alliance's philanthropy has a business focus. Members last year donated $100,000 for a scholarship fund for Hispanics getting their masters of business administration degree.

"This is an effort to try to take it to a different level of high finance," said Hector Flores, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the oldest Hispanic civil rights organizations in the country. "They are taking giant steps… Many people, while involved in more of a civil rights nature, just have not been able to penetrate the business sector. Heretofore, there has been a vacuum."

Campos, who is no longer a member of the New America Alliance because of his position in a public office, said, "The New America Alliance has shown that it can be effective in bringing its members out and letting them be identified for major government positions -- certainly, in my case."

The organization has a small staff, including an executive director and operations manager, and operates out of leased offices on Connecticut Avenue.

Its members include many entrepreneurs, such as Daniel D. Villanueva, chief executive of Bastion Capital Corp., one of the first Hispanic-owned venture capital firms. Villanueva, the first Latino in the National Football League, struggled to get funding for a Spanish-language television network he established after retiring from the Dallas Cowboys 35 years ago. He and his partners scraped together backing from Mexican investors to start the company that became Univision Communications Inc., which he sold for $300 million in 1988. The station now has a market capitalization of $6 billion.

Other members include Joseph A. Unanue, who along with his brother turned Goya Foods Inc., their family business, into a Hispanic and Caribbean foods company that competes with Del Monte Foods Co. and Kraft Foods Inc.; Hollywood producer Moctesuma Esparza, whose movie credits include "Selena" and "Gettysburg"; and Texas oilman and 2002 Democratic gubernatorial candidate A.R. "Tony" Sanchez Jr.

The group is almost equally divided between Democrats, such as Sanchez, and Republicans, such as Dorene Dominguez, a vice president at engineering firm Vanir Construction Management Inc., who was a delegate for President Bush at the 2000 Republican National Convention.

Other Republican members include Lionel Sosa, who helped run media operations for the presidential campaigns of both George W. Bush and his father; and Hector V. Barreto, who helped found the organization but relinquished his membership when Bush appointed him to run the Small Business Administration. Before his appointment Barreto ran a financial services firm in Southern California.

Eight members of the New America Alliance started a bipartisan political action committee last May. The committee -- still in its formative stages and not an official part of the organization -- raised $20,000 last year but didn't make any campaign contributions in the November election cycle, according to reports from the Federal Election Commission.

Esparza, who is chairman of New America Alliance, gave $2,000 to California congresswoman Linda Sanchez (D-Lakewood) for her 2002 campaign, and Cisneros gave more than $25,000 to Democratic candidates and political action committees in the 2000 and 2002 election cycles. Sosa has given $2,500 to Republican candidates in the past four years, including $1,000 to President Bush in 1999.

In many ways, the political world has been easier for Hispanics to penetrate than the corporate boardroom, which often are populated by a chief executive's friends, relatives and fellow chief executives.

At the 1,000 largest companies, Hispanics hold only 181 board seats, less than 2 percent of the total, according to the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility, which has advocated for more Latino representation on corporate boards by producing annual reports tallying the number of Hispanic board members.

Last year, with regulators and lawmakers pressuring companies to appoint more independent directors, the New America Alliance began a push to get more Hispanics appointed to boards.

In September, the organization hosted a two-day seminar at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, where 21 of its members took courses on the fiduciary responsibilities of board members.

The group also has contacted top executive search firms, including Spencer Stuart Management Consultants NV, A.T. Kearney Inc. and Korn/Ferry International, to tout its members.

Charles H. King, head of global board search services for Korn/Ferry, said the problem facing the group is that major corporations want chief financial officers, chief operating officers and chief executives from other large companies to sit on their boards.

"A Fortune 1,000 company will most likely not look at a Hispanic small-business person as being seasoned enough to serve on a board," said King, who has placed about seven Hispanics on boards in the past 18 months. He said Hispanics who are senior corporate executives and have an operational background have the best chance.

Alliance members scoff when told there are not enough qualified Hispanics.

"We who live in this diverse environment are saying they're all around us," said Ana Maria Fernandez-Haar, owner of an international marketing firm and program chair for the New America Alliance.

Staff Researcher Bob Lyford contributed to this report.