BIOGRAPHY
A Trajectory of Ambition
Nadia Rivera´s journey in business began when she became a 19-year-old media entrepreneur. In 2003, she founded a bilingual magazine in Massachusetts called Voz Latina, which explored in-depth overlooked topics about the Hispanic community. Voz Latina, which received contributions from award-winning writers, closed its operations when Nadia headed off to complete an undergraduate degree at Smith College.
Meanwhile, Nadia was gaining valuable experience as a reporter. Invited for an interview at the Boston Globe, Nadia interned and worked in 2002, 2003 and 2006 as an editor and reporter at the Associated Press and at The Hartford Courant, the nation´s oldest continuously published newspaper.
In 2003, the Valley Press Club in Hampshire County recognized her exceptional reporting on local communities. In 2004, she was the recipient of a fellowship, granted to young journalists of promise, at the prestigious Wesleyan Writers Conference. Multiple past winners have gone on to win Pulitzer Prizes. In 2005 and 2006, she also worked for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which included interviewing the actor John Leguizamo.
Latina distinguished itself as the lifestyle magazine for U.S.-based Hispanic women featuring celebrities such as Salma Hayek, Shakira and Jennifer Lopez.
Unique Dedication and Determination
The drive and inquisitive nature that made her stand out as a young journalist also propelled Nadia forward as a social entrepreneur. At age 20, she founded and led for two and a half years a social impact organization in Massachusetts. Since 2004, the Hispanic Media Institute received local and national private funding to promote accurate and nuanced coverage in mainstream media of issues affecting the Latinx community.
The Institute organized a series of educational conferences and workshops, which included the participation of prominent journalists, in Puerto Rico and at renowned colleges in New England, including Harvard University. At the time, her work in community building, fundraising and management attracted nationwide recognition. As an inspiring business leader, Nadia appeared in 2005 in Latina magazine, featuring Eva Mendes on the cover, in an article that described the impact of Nadia´s work in historically underrepresented and underserved communities.
A Strong Work Ethic
Since graduate school in 2012, Nadia has used her first-hand knowledge of applied linguistics in distinct industries and sectors. In higher education, her graduate research, funded by grants, in Switzerland and France centered on the relationship between phonetics and phonology and the evolution of languages.
Having taught French at the University of Puerto Rico, she dedicated herself to the theory and practice of foreign language acquisition and teaching. Her collaborations as a linguist with top startups and established businesses, including Google and the U.S. Department of Defense, led to the creation of Comundy, a boutique language service agency.
In 2022, the Foundation for Puerto Rico selected Nadia out of more than two-thousand applicants to participate in their program for influential business owners. This program targeting a select group of changemakers was personally organized and led by Alexandra Lúgaro, a businesswoman and politician who finished third as an independent candidate for Governor of Puerto Rico during the 2016 and 2020 elections.
In addition, Nadia was chosen to participate that same year in the government-sponsored Puerto Rico Science, Technology, and Research Trust´s first-generation incubation program, which trained her in Design Thinking.
A Specific Sense of Purpose
Today, Nadia is based in Florida and remains a social impact entrepreneur, addressing global challenges such as the need for universally accessible education. She believes that mission-driven businesses are powerful agents for change; profit and purpose are not mutually exclusive. Motivated by a great sense of social responsibility, Nadia is committed to working collectively to overcome communicative, cultural and language barriers.
In late 2023, Nadia founded the parent company Aitabay Corporation to build innovative and disruptive AI-powered solutions to tackle significant social challenges. That same year, she participated in highly competitive and demanding pre-acceleration programs for accomplished founders at Amazon, Chicago´s innovation hub 1871, Google´s Launchpad, and the Founder Institute. Also in 2023, Nadia was selected as a finalist in Platform Venture´s national competition for an investment of $500,000 in a promising Generative AI startup.
Nadia was featured in Crown Castle, the nation’s largest provider of shared communications infrastructure, as a Latinx founder to be on the lookout for.