Samara Mejia Hernandez
Age: 35
Title: Founding Partner
Name of Organization: Chingona Ventures
Samara Mejia Hernandez, Founding Partner of an institutionally backed seed stage fund, Chingona Ventures,
Samara Mejia Hernandez focuses on investing in technology and technology-enabled companies all over the U.S. Prior to this she was an early stage investor at MATH Venture Partners, an early-stage venture fund investing in technology start-ups with differentiated approaches to customer acquisition.
Hernandez worked at Goldman Sachs, where she was continually ranked in the top 5 in selling financial products, providing market insights, advising on portfolio construction, and consulting on business practices.
She started her career in the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodity (FICC) group where she led multiple technology enhancing projects across global exchanges. Hernandez is actively involved in the Chicago tech community and is passionate about helping underrepresented groups get into STEM education, venture capital and entrepreneurship.
She co-founded the Latinx Founders Collective organization to bring together Latinx founders, investors, and community leaders to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Hernandez is an active member of Latinx VCs, a San-Francisco based group of experienced venture investors coming together to connect, engage, and foster the Latinx VC ecosystem.
Hernandez is also on the board of Chicago Blend, an organization dedicated to supporting and increasing diversity in the Chicago tech community and is an advisor to Angeles Investors, an angel group focused on investing in Latinx founders.
She earned an industrial and operations engineering degree from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in business administration from Northwestern University. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Ben Hernandez (also an entrepreneur), and 1-year-old son, Santi.
“You only need one person who finds something in you and is willing to take a chance on you – look for them and spend time building that relationship.”
