Sometimes you have to draw outside the lines, and this is one of those times: Anna Maria Chávez, a Latina from Texas, has just been named the new (and first Latina) CEO of Girls Scouts of America. She’s been part of the GSA since ’09, and before that worked as an urban affairs adviser to former Arizona governor and current U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and was chief of staff for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Government Contracting and Minority Enterprise Development.
Girl Scouts membership has been on the decline the last few years, but if anyone—and any group—can bring it back, it will be Chávez and her strong contacts with the Latino community (and yes, she’s been a Girl Scout herself since she as a kid in Eloy, AZ.) Interesting point, too: there has been a 55 percent increase in the number of Latina girls in the GSA in the last ten years. They are now 12% of the membership—almost a quarter of a million Latina girls in 2010.
Is this the place where we say “Sí se puede”
Read more about Anna Maria Chávez in the new Latino Pages on The Huffington Post.
