Alejandro Manzanares
West Coast Lead, Global Passport at JP Morgan · Council on Foreign Relations term member · Formerly Endeavor Puerto Rico, Aspen Institute
Conversations
Come early or come late: what a global banking insider knows about Latino founders crossing borders
Inside JP Morgan's Global Passport program, the fund-side squeeze nobody wants to name, and the rule founders keep breaking on the way into the US market.
Transcript →In their words
Come early or come late. Don't come in the middle. A lot of Latino founders come in the middle, and that's where deals go to die in due diligence.C·006
Corridor Context
Alejandro Manzanares leads the West Coast for JP Morgan's Global Passport program, the team built to bank foreign-owned Series A–D startups scaling into the US. Born in Puerto Rico to a Cuban mother and Spanish father, he came up through gustazos.com in the Caribbean, Endeavor Puerto Rico, the National League of Cities, and the Aspen Institute before joining JP Morgan five years ago. He is also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The arc they moved through
A warm, rapid-fire start. Pride, personality, and the one word in each guest's language that English can't touch.
Where they come from, and how it shaped the way they build, invest, and lead. Terroir over resume.
The real work. The honest business, the hard decisions, the bet they're actually making. Host as peer, not fan.
The jam session. Escalating questions, playful to profound, and one answer the guest can save "pa' la sobremesa."
The same closing question, every guest, forever: who held the door open for you, and whose name goes on the door you're holding open?