I recently joined Fuerza Ventures as a co-founder. This represents committing to a major goal of mine to to support incredible entrepreneurs who have typically been overlooked by venture capital firms. It’s an extension of my work as an operator in high-growth start ups, a DEI and culture leader in global organizations, and my recent experience as an angel investor.
I’m Nicole Cuellar-Lopez (she/her/hers). My story begins in the Bronx where I was born. The first child of a mom who came to Crown Heights from Jamaica as a girl, and a father from a Puerto Rican and Cuban family. My grandparents made their living with their hands in manufacturing and working for decades for MTA. My parents both served their communities as registered nurses.
By the time my younger brother came along, our family resettled in sunny Orlando, Florida. I landed at a “better” school on the “right” side of town. As the only Black and Latinx kid in my class, I’m unsurprised but still disappointed to recall the memory that stands out the most from elementary school. The fifth grade assignment was to read a chapter book and write a summary of it. The day after I turned in my homework, my teacher pulled me aside and took on a very serious tone. “Nicole,” she asked, “Do you know what the word ‘plagiarism’ means?” I did. And I didn’t plagiarize my paper. But that didn’t matter when I was just a child and the teacher wouldn’t have believed me anyways.
Optimistic and determined to a fault, I’ve never let detractors get the best of me. Years later, I found a supportive and nurturing community at Howard University, a historically black college in Washington DC. There, I learned the power of community, of belonging, and of excellence. I studied Spanish and Russian and spent as many semesters abroad as my scholarship would allow.
The real ah-ha moment came a year after graduation when I was completing a Fulbright Fellowship, teaching English at a Siberian university. I noticed the people who emerged as leaders in the community all had something fundamental in common. They had deep experience working across lines of difference. They’d been pushed out of their own comfort zones, challenged by unfamiliar territory and culture, and emerged with stellar leadership skills. They could unite diverse groups of people and lead them to outstanding collective results– it’s an insight I’ve carried with me into my career both as an investor, in business and as a diversity, equity and inclusion leader.
I spent the next four years of my career working at a non-profit organization facilitating exchange student programs sponsored by the US Department of State with the mission of increasing mutual understanding between cultures and developing future leaders. I helped our students navigate stereotypes and bias, develop leadership skills and build successful civic projects in their host communities.
In early 2013,I transitioned to my first role at a tech start up. I knew quickly these lessons and skills would pay off for business leaders. My first title when I joined Uber was “Community Manager.” My charge was to grow our rider base in DC through events, partnerships, stunts, social media, and customer support. Our operations team was a group of scrappy kids who did a lot with a little in those early days. I took on big projects like leading the marketing launch of uberX in our markets. I spent 3 months in Hyderabad bringing onboard a vendor to help manage support tickets. Each quarter (week?) seemed to bring new, massive, and complex business problems I was super excited to tackle. And they taught me lessons I’m happy to share with founders in my network.
Several years, and many titles later, I was leading Global Strategy and Planning for Diversity and Inclusion at Uber. The profound cultural challenges I navigated as the company evolved felt like both a crash course and a masterclass in building diverse, equitable and inclusive teams. This chapter of my career deserves its own blogpost.
Ultimately, Uber IPO’d and made it possible for me to begin angel investing. I joined Pipeline Angels, a group dedicated to changing the face of angel investing by providing early capital to women and femme founders. I believe it’s important for me to play an active role in supporting promising companies at the beginning stages. You truly never know where the next big idea is coming from. What I expect of myself is to step up and do what I can to help them achieve their mission.
When I met Isaiah and Sebastian, I knew joining them to found Fuerza Ventures and becoming an equal partner was the right decision because we hold common values. I believe we’ll be successful because our background skills are complementary, rather than redundant.
We relate to founders who don’t fit the mold. We empathize with people who’ve been underestimated. Most of all, we are ready to get behind great companies in the making.
