Business Women's Forum 2020: 09/22 Crucial Conversations

Jennifer Mayer-Glenn, Director for University Neighborhood Partners
Jenny is excited to be the new Director of UNP where she gets to support UNP Staff with their important work. She served as the Director of Family-School Collaboration at the Salt Lake City School District (SLCSD) working to build authentic family-school and community partnerships focusing on the varied needs, hopes and dreams of underserved communities in SLC. She was an administrator at Glendale Middle School, Mountain View Elementary and Community Learning Center. She also served as the Alternative Language Services Coordinator and language and culture coach (for teachers) for the SLCSD. Prior to that she was an ESL and Special Education teacher. When Jenny isn’t working toward social justice in an educational setting, she is doing community advocacy work with the Utah Coalition of La Raza (UCLR) and working to increase the number of Latinx teachers and administrators with the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents-Utah (ALAS-U). Jenny earned a fellowship with the National Institute of Latino School Leaders from 2013-2015. She was invited to participate in the Harvard Business School Young American Leaders Program in 2016. She also served as the Chair and member of the Salt Lake City Human Rights Commission for 6 years during which time the commission won awards from Equality Utah and the ACLU of Utah.

Silvia Castro, Executive Director of the Suazo Business Center
She has more than 20 years’ experience working with non-profit, government and for-profit organizations. Her past experience include working executives and business owners from Fortune 500 companies, the State of Utah, Salt Lake city, Salt Lake county and forward-looking non-profits such as the Utah Microenterprise Loan Fund, the Austin Project, in Austin, TX, and the Goldman Sachs 10K Program. Her love for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship began in 1999 when she worked as the Assistant Director at the Women’s Business Center of Utah.Silvia received an International fellowship through which she completed her MBA with an emphasis in International Business from the University of Utah. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in International Business from Westminster College, where she graduated with honors. She is certified in Cultural Intelligence through the CII and as a Six Sigma Black Belt. In 2019, she served as Co-Chair of the Salt Lake City Mayor Mendenhall’s Economic Development Transition Committee. She currently serves on the Executive Committee of Envision Utah, Wasatch Front Regional Council’s Economic Development District, Utah Governor’s COVID Economic Taskforce and the Governor’s COVID Multicultural Taskforce.When she is not working to better the lives of Utah’s small business owners, Silvia works to better the lives of her daughter, husband, and stepchildren. She and her family love to travel, play outdoors, hike, and spend time at any bodies of water they can find.

NON-PROFIT SPOTLIGHT:  
Friends for Sight works passionately each day to save sight and change lives. We do this by providing free vision screenings, working to ensure that people of all ages and backgrounds have access to quality eye care, and disseminating information about eye safety, threats to vision, and available community resources.