North Chapter Monthly Luncheon

Your February Speaker

Carolina Aponte

CEO, Caja Holdings

The journey from struggling immigrant to entrepreneur - a mindset change

1. Success comes from a Mindset Change

2. Having Resources in not enough but being resourceful is!

3. Growth is a numbers game

How did I finally become an Entrepreneur was a question I thought I knew the answer to until a couple of years ago when I had to dive into the whys of my business and my humble success while filling out the NAWBO Rising start award application.

I went down memory lane to how it all started for me as a young immigrant who was never satisfied with the ‘status quo’. How without a high school degree I managed to land my first job in a professional environment and then put myself through school to eventually become the controller for a very success software company and then start my own business.

Success comes from a mindset that refuses to take no for answer and continues to move forward because even when you do not have the resources, you can be resourceful enough to get what you need when you needed and at the end to achieve financial success you have to accept that numbers don’t lie!

Carolina Aponte is a seasoned professional with more than 20 years of experience serving clients both large and small. As the CEO of Caja Holdings, Carolina divides her time between business development, client services, consulting and analysis. In a span of 5 years, Carolina has grown Caja Holdings’ revenue an average of 35 percent for the past 3 years. Her business services multi-million dollar companies, law firms, and diverse small businesses and provides bookkeeping for local accounting firms.

Carolina began her accounting career working on manual ledgers for a Miami law firm. She graduated from Nova Southeastern University with a degree in Business Management. Afterwards, she climbed the corporate ladder at a thriving accounting software company until she moved to North Carolina with her family. There, she used her extensive understanding of tax code and accounting to start a small consulting company to provide clients practical and effective internal accounting and tax-reporting solutions.

Carolina is the recipient of the Latin American Businesswoman 2012 Award in Charlotte, NC and the 2017 NAWBO Rising Star Award. She is a Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Scholar, a business growth accelerator. She is also an Executive Board Member of The Sandbox Group and serves on the Union County Board of Directors for United Way and is a member of NAWBO Charlotte's Public Policy committee. Carolina has been a member of Business Sorority since 2016 and a member of NAWBO Charlotte since 2015.

What: Business Networking for Women

When: Friday, February 15, 2019 - 11:30AM – 1:00PM

Cost: $25.00 for members

$35.00 for guests

Register by Monday, 2/11/2019 by 5PM for the early registration cost. Rate goes up by $10.00 after that date/time! Day of and at the door price are $50.00 for everyone!

* Registrations are NON-REFUNDABLE. If, for some reason, you paid and cannot attend, please feel free to send someone in your place. (Let us know so we can be prepared for them.) You may do this twice in our "calendar" year which runs 8/1 through 7/31.