Diversity and Inclusion Council - United for Business

United for Business focuses on economic stability and mobility and promotes the attraction, retention and expansion of quality jobs by providing direct services and assistance to businesses and startups, with a focus on women and minority owned businesses and entrepreneurs, in under resourced communities in the Denver metro area. 
 
Our Mile High United Way Business Advisors work one on one with small business owners and start-ups to identify their needs and triage solutions. Through this one on one relationship, our Business Advisors introduce skill based volunteers who deliver no cost consulting services. Our Business Advisor also supports the introduction to other community based resources, such as community programming, training, and grant application support.  

About the Guest Speakers: 
Fermin Avila has dedicated 17 years of service to Mile High United Way. A vision to serve the community and create opportunities for individuals to meet and exceed self-sufficiency standards keeps him motivated. 
Fermin currently serves as the Director of the United for Business program, an initiative that provides no-cost advising and consulting services to small businesses in underserved communities. He spent much of his career at the United Way within the 2-1-1 Help Center, where he established a nationally recognized 2-1-1 program that helped millions of people connect to critical community services.

As a community member, he currently serves on the Board of the Mi Casa Resource Center and previously served on the Customer Service Advisory Council for Mi Casa’s Employment Training Program, the Denver Regional Mobility & Access Council, the Latino Leadership Institutes Alumni Advisory County, and the City of Englewood’s Election Commission. 

Fermin was a non-traditional student at Metropolitan’s State University of Denver where he studied Political Science & Diversity Studies. On the personal side, he’s married to an amazing partner – Marissa - and the father of two sons, Micah (14) and Noah (11). He loves all sports, but most of all soccer, mountain biking and bike packing.
 

Vanessa partners shoulder-to-shoulder with the businesses-owners to understand what support and assistance they need for their business to thrive and then identifies professional and skill-based volunteers such as Attorneys, Financial and Consulting professionals who are willing to volunteer their time to serve the business owners.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in International Business and a Master of Science degree in administration. Vanessa recently graduated from the Latino Leadership Institute, a program that prepares Colorado Latino Professionals. She was born and raised in Mexico and came to Denver in 2013. She is a proud mom of two boys: Luis Jr. and Mauricio. She has been married for 12 years to her husband Luis.
 

To learn more about the United for Business program and our service offerings, visit our webpage at www.UnitedWayDenver.org or email us at UFB@UnitedWayDenver.org. 
 
Aurora Chamber of Commerce Diversity & Inclusion Mission: to promote diversity and inclusion in the business community through education, outreach, networking, mentoring and recognition programs that engage our entire community and support our business leaders.
 
Aurora Chamber of Commerce Diversity & Inclusion Vision: to transform our diverse business communities into environments where all businesses are valued for their uniqueness and differences, and are confident that their contributions matter.
 
Aurora Chamber of Commerce Diversity & Inclusion Purpose: to encourage business to business networking, improving the business climate and making this community prosperous, economically attractive and desirable as a place to work, live and buy local.

The Diversity and Inclusion Council is sponsored by Pinnacol Assurance.