María Elena Carrión

Ms. Carrión is the founder and Managing Partner of Multicultural Capital, LLC (MCC). Ms. Carrión, was managing director and head of the emerging markets team at Prudential Investments where she oversaw a team of portfolio managers, analysts and traders based in Newark and Hong Kong. Prior to that, she was the head of the emerging markets equity team at Bankers Trust in New York. Her funds at both Prudential and Bankers Trust consistently outperformed their benchmarks and were top-quartile ranked in their respective categories. She started her career at US Trust in 1986 where she managed large cap US portfolios for offshore clients and was also responsible on a research basis for overseeing the firm’s investments in European and Asian equities. As a result of a joint venture between US Trust and Foreign & Colonial, Ms. Carrión moved to London in the early 1990’s as one of the founding team members of Latin American Securities, Ltd., a subsidiary of Foreign & Colonial and one of the pioneers in the field of investing in Latin America. In terms of professional affiliations, Ms. Carrión is a member of the CFA Institute, the NY Society of Security Analysts, the Puerto Rico Energy Cluster, Argyle Executive Forum Energy Community (NYC), the Women in Infrastructure Group (NYC), and the Women's Conservation Forum (DC). She has also been an active participant in angel and venture capital seminars organized by Grupo Guayacán, Inc (P.R.) and Golden Seeds (NYC). Ms. Carrión has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS from the Wharton School, Univ. of Pennsylvania. She is also a PHD candidate in Puerto Rican history at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados in San Juan, P.R. Her thesis work is focused on analyzing the impact of the Hispanic demographic boom in the United States on the resolution of Puerto Rico's political status. Ms. Carrión is fluent in English, Spanish and conversant in French. She currently lives between San Juan, P.R. and Washington, D.C. She is married to Congressman Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner in the United States Congress.