In this post: Latinos in Bio Co-Founder Carolina Alarco explains why Latinos hold only about 6% of biotech jobs, how a ladder of mentorship and leadership programs builds the pipeline, and why great work only advances a career when it is visible.
Carolina Alarco and her co-founder had each spent 15 to 20 years in the biotech industry before they met. Both were Latino professionals in the same field, and neither knew the other existed.
"We were wondering how many other Latinos were going to be out there, working as professionals in the biotech industry and do not know each other," Alarco said on Activating Greatness, the leadership podcast from Velocity Advisory Group.
The answer became Latinos in Bio. The group started in 2019 as an informal steering committee, incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2021, and now counts about 1,800 members. Along the way, Alarco, who was born in Peru and has worked in Boston's biotech industry for about 30 years, arrived at a conclusion that applies well beyond her field: Being good at your job does not guarantee anyone will notice.
The second clue came from an article in Nature Biotechnology comparing the U.S. population with the biotech workforce.
"In biotech we are very focused on data," Alarco said. By the figures she cited, about 20% of the U.S. population is Latino, but Latinos made up only 6% of the biotech workforce. The numbers fell further up the ladder: about 3% of biotech management and less than 2% of board seats.
For Alarco, the question became why. One answer was a misconception that kept talented people from ever applying.
Many people in the Latino community, Alarco said, assume you need a doctorate to build a career in the life sciences. The industry, in fact, runs on legal, finance, human resources, marketing, and sales professionals, along with its scientists.
"They don't know that the industry offers positions in legal, in finance, in business, like myself," she said. "I'm not a scientist."
The industry has matured since she entered it in the 1990s, when companies were small and few Latinos worked in them. Today, she said, it offers the chance to build generational wealth while helping patients. "You do well by doing good," she said. She does not pretend the path is easy. "It's very hard work. It's a complex industry," she said.
Latinos in Bio hosts close to 10 networking events a year. But the board built something more deliberate on top of them: a sequence of programs that follows a professional from first job to boardroom.
A spring mentorship program pairs early career professionals with senior leaders, usually in the same function. Between spring and fall, an emerging leaders program prepares graduates for the jump from individual contributor to manager, a shift Alarco called a big change in anybody's career. At the top sits an in-person C-suite and board-ready program for senior professionals.
"When we were young, we had needs that were not fulfilled by the programs that existed, so we are modeling the programs based on that," Alarco said.
The operating model is lean by choice. Membership is free. There is no full-time paid staff, just a volunteer board of about 17 people and a communications specialist. More than 20 biopharma companies serve as sponsors, and non-Latino supporters, whom the group calls amigos, are welcome. The board also knows its limits, which is why it partners with Velocity on professional development. "I think that we need to recognize where we need external expertise," Alarco said.
Toni Burkard of Pfizer CentreOne made a similar case for mentorship in life sciences, and Julie Blasingim described leading with mission under pressure.
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Use it to map how your organization supports people from first job to manager to the boardroom, and to spot the rungs that are missing.
"It's not enough to be great at what you do. You have to be visible."
Carolina Alarco, Co-Founder, Latinos in Bio
The sharpest idea in the conversation came when host Alec McChesney asked what skill leaders most underrate. Alarco answered with one word: fearlessness.
"I think fear is in our head, and it's one of our most important obstacles," she said. She was careful to add that fearlessness means taking educated risks.
Then she explained why it matters so much to the young professionals Latinos in Bio serves. "It's not enough to be great at what you do," she said. "You have to be visible and you have to make sure that your accomplishments are noticed and for that, you need to present with confidence."
That means building executive presence and developing what she called "the ability to self-promote without sounding cocky."
The point carries extra weight for first-generation professionals. Many Latino professionals are the first in their families to graduate from college, Alarco said, and they often did not grow up hearing that they needed to push harder to advance. Latinos in Bio supplies that push and frames ambition as an obligation. "If it's not you, then who will forge a path for the next generation," she said.
Her next answer showed the other side of that tension. Asked what great leaders should stop doing, she said: "Great leaders need to stop bragging." People who once respected a leader who is too full of themselves, she said, "will stop respecting you if it's too much."
Put the two answers together and you get a clear standard. Make your work visible and speak with confidence. Then stop before visibility turns into self-congratulation. McChesney connected the idea to Velocity's management courses: When the team wins, it is a team win, not a leader win.
Alarco is proudest of the community Latinos in Bio has built, including the new jobs and business relationships members have found through it. "It's not just networking to create a social relationship, but it's also to create a business relationship," she said.
The next phase is geographic. Membership is concentrated in the Northeast and California, and Alarco wants to reach emerging biotech hubs in North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Illinois, and Florida.
Growth will demand the discipline Alarco names as her daily leadership habit, for both strategic thinking and execution. "Strategy without execution is nothing," she said.
The larger goal has not changed. Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, she said, and remain underrepresented in biotech. The organization will not stop "until we are proportionally represented."
HOW VELOCITY HELPS
Alarco called the move from individual contributor to manager a big change in anybody's career, and Latinos in Bio built a program around that moment. Velocity's year-long Emerging Leaders program helps new leaders make the same shift through a 70/20/10 model with cohort coaching, reinforcement calls, and a Velocity Coach paired with every participant. Leaders build the confidence, presence, and discipline Alarco describes while working on the real challenges in front of them.
See how Velocity works with life sciences organizations.
Alarco's best advice came from a CEO she worked with: Some of what you hear is just noise, and it should not paralyze you. The feedback worth keeping comes from your supervisor and the people you trust.
For leaders, the lesson runs in two directions. Make your own work visible without making it about you. Then build the ladder for the people behind you. As Alarco asked, "If it's not you, then who will forge a path for the next generation?"
Hear Carolina Alarco's full conversation with host Alec McChesney on Activating Greatness. Watch on YouTube, or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Follow Carolina on LinkedIn.
FREE GUIDE
Alarco argues that great work does not speak for itself. This short framework helps you make sure strong work, and the people doing it, are seen, with confidence and without bragging.