Making a Buck to Make a Difference: Creating Purpose-Driven Capital

Welcome to Leadership Reimagined, where game changing conversations are reshaping the world of work. I'm Janis LG CEO and founder of L Group, Executive Search advisors and pioneers in redefining executive search through our unwavering commitment to helping organizations hire outstanding executives to build inclusive environments. Today on Leadership Reimagined, our topic is making a buck to make a difference, creating purpose driven capital, and I'm delighted to welcome Martin Cabrera, founder and CEO of Cabrera Capital Markets, one of the largest Hispanic owned financial firms in the country, with eight offices across the US and dedicated trading personnel in London.

A premier investment bank, institutional brokerage, and real estate development firm, Cabrera Capital serves more than eight hundred corporate and municipal clients, including global corporations, pension funds, municipalities, and private equity firms, and they have underwridden about three trillion in debt and equity and trades on average two point two billion in securities a day. It is an amazing organization, but it goes beyond financial performance because Martin's very humble beginnings on the Southwest Side of Chicago, where gangs ruled, Martin and his firm are now deeply committed to creating meaningful impact and helping others overcome poverty and discrimination.

He serves on numerous local and national boards, including sant Ignatius College Preparatory, Homeboy Industries, World Business Chicago, the Chicago Community Trust, the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Latino Donor Collaborative Illinois EDC, and the Commercial Club of Chicago, all for advancing education, economic opportunity, and community development. Martin has received numerous awards and recognition during his twenty five years leading Cabrera Capital, including most recently the Robert F.

And Ethel Kennedy twenty twenty five Ripple of Hope Award, which honors exemplary leaders from government, business, advocacy, and entertainment who have demonstrated in an unwavering commitment to social change, equity, justice, and human rights. He was named a twenty twenty four Notable Latino Leader by Crane's Chicago Business and received the twenty twenty three Global Citizen Award from World Business Chicago, among other business leadership honors. Martin. Welcome.

I met you at the Robert F. And Ethyl Kennedy Ripple of Hope Awards this year, heard your acceptance speech, and I knew my audience needed to hear your story, your focus, your impact. So thank you for joining us today. Well, thank you, Janis, it's a pleasure to be here with you.

Well, your story is really interesting, and so before we talk about the remarked success of your company and how that got started, talk about your family history and what happened the ninety five years ago to your grandfather who was born in Los Angeles in nineteen eighteen, and his experience and how that shaped your own perspective. No, thanks, Janis, and definitely I know. My parents were both born in Mexico. My mother was born in Durngo and she came over when she was about eight years old.

And my father was born in San dis Potosi, so he came to Chicago when he was about seven years old. But before then, my grandfather, Emilio Cabrera, was born in nineteen eighteen, and he was born just outside of Los Angeles. You know, he grew up there as a kid. In nineteen twenty nine, when the stock market crashed, it was very devastating for the whole economy.

So in nineteen thirty they were actually folks around the country. It was very hard times for jobs and they were saying the Mexicans were taking any of the jobs. So my grandfather, who was twelve at the time, and his younger sister and his mother were rounded up and put into a box car and there I believe it was at Union Station in Los Angeles, and they were shipped to Mexico. They were deported, and although my grandfather was born in the United States and they were just outside of La he was deported and he grew up in Mexico and in San UIs Potosi.

And there were I think roughly about two million that were deported from the US to Mexico, and about sixty percent of them were citizens, and that was the estimate. But my grandfather I grew up in San Luis Potosi. He kind of married my grandmother. They had three kids, and then my grandfather, when he was older, came back to the United States and went to Detroit to work for General Motors and then was sending money back home to my grandmother and his kids, and then went back for them to bring them to Chicago where they settled, and at the time, my father was seven years old, so I think it was a dark point in history for the US.

But I think, you know, I give my grandfather credit for continue to work hard and bring his family to the US and really kind of give them a great education and open up opportunity. So I'm always grateful for him and all of the hard work and dedication and passionate had for his family and given opportunities. And then later kind of my mother and father were dating when they met in Chicago and ended up getting married and having had three kids. It's interesting because when you spoke about your grandfather at the Ripple Award ceremony, you said he did hold a grudge against the US.

He was very positive. In fact, he was also somebody who taught you about business, collecting cans and selling windbreakers at a flea market and some of these experiences that really gave you an entrepreneurial spirit and a positive spirit, even though you were in Chicago's South West Side, which was life threatening at times, right, so you didn't you grew up with gangs around you, and yet your grandfather that influence and what he taught you about business tell us a little bit more about that, because that really helped you along your way into being an entrepreneur.

Yeah. So I remember as a kid growing up in little village there on the southwest side of Chicago. It was a tough neighborhood. There were kind of gangs and you just the element of the neighborhood as well as some of the drugs that were there in the neighborhood.

But really I had an opportunity, or many opportunities walk with my grandfather and he's like he would tell me, like, let's go collect some cans and we can hand them in and collect a few bucks by crushing the cans and then taking them into the recycling center. But they would give us some money for those cans. So I was probably about seven or eight years old. We would go to the park and pick up all the empty aluminum cans and crush them.

But you know, we'd had some great conversations, and that's when he would tell me about the time when he was a young kid, and you know, he was put into a rail card and then kind of shipped out. And at the time I didn't realize being a citizen or a non citizen, but really just hearing his stories. But he was never angry or upset. He just he just saw it as there were challenges in life and you have to work hard and move on.

He really wasn't upset with the country at all. He actually loved the US, and you know, would always talk about it's the greatest country in the world. But I think it was his attitude that I realized later, and that one he was always had a positive attitude, and he taught us a great work ethic, but also just the opportunity to go turn in some cans and maybe we'd get like eighteen dollars or sometimes twenty eight dollars and have large garbage bags that we'd hand in, but that there were opportunities and that you didn't have to be idle at home and you can kind of go and work.

And although you know, it wasn't he had his job at General Electric, but he did teach me very good work ethic, and my father as well as my mother, but just learning some of those lessons and growing up there in the neighborhood. He would always stress to us and my father mother did too, just the value of education and helping others. So that was always instilled in me in a young age, and I was able to go and work with another uncle and even at the flea market and selling jackets, and then working with another uncle a little later as a kid at the flea market and selling kind of video cassettes and vhuss and radio equipment as well.

Instill to me that there's opportunities out there, and even though I was a young kid, that you can work hard and that you know it can make a couple of bucks, but learning some of the aspects of business and also having a positive attitude and whatever life has to dole out to you no matter how challenging. And even though it's challenging for my grandfather, I think it showed me that you keep working hard and there's always going to be challenges in life. You're going to get knocked down, but you have to get right back up and go at it again.

Some great lessons that you learned early on and working that early. It's an age, but you went to North Northern Illinois University, You've got a finance degree, and you joined a retail brokerage firm right and you quickly became their top producer, which I think is what you're calling that Latino work ethic, right, I just sheer work ethic and relentless hustle, and you became the top producer. What happened after that? Because you unders you've then found out I think it was inequitable about the compensation you received versus others.

So what did that prompt you to do? What happened? Yeah? I think you know.

It was my first job out of college, and it was it was a great opportunity. And really as a retail broker, you had to I had to make four hundred and fifty phone calls a day and ask people to send me three hundred thousand dollars so that I can invest it kind of invest those dollars for them in different stocks. It was a great kind of work habit to start off, because there's a lot of rejection involved and a lot of people kind of hanging up on me and even swearing at me and calling me names.

So I would just hang up and keep going back at it and making more phone calls, and I wouldn't put the phone doll down. I would just hit the button and then get to the next call. But there was one instance where you know, at the brokerage firm. The market was open and everyone was on the phone, and there was an incoming call, and I thought, okay, nobody's picking it up.

Somebody might want to place a trade. So I picked up the phone and you know, answered kind of the company's name. One of the other brokers yelled out kind of, hey, you're supposed to be making outgoing phone calls, you little spick, And you know when he said that, I automatically like jumped up. And growing up in the neighborhood, you know, I've kind of got into a lot of fights as a kid, but my first reaction is like, I'm going to go and punch this guy.

And I was upset and I was angry, and I was going over there, and I had to tell myself, I can't let the neighborhood come out in me, and I had to show them. But I had to show them in business. And I was really upset. But it actually I had to take all of that anger and frustration and redirect it in a positive way, and it motivated me that I have to show them in business and all the others as well.

And so I started getting in, you know, early in the morning before anyone else would get in and i'd stay late, and there was certain rules that you can only call till nine pm, so I would stay until nine pm in the office, but I would say even later because I could call the West Coast until nine pm, which meant eleven o'clock. Oh my goodness, a lot of time. So I would just kind of there pounding the phones and trying to get new leads and prospective clients. You know, it did allow me to do well and be one of the top producers in the office at a very early age.

I think I was twenty three or twenty four, and a lot of the other brokers were in their forties and fifties, which I know it didn't really go over too well at first because they thought, here's this young kid just out of college. What does he know. But that's what the country is really about. It doesn't matter how old you are, what you look like, where you come from.

There's opportunities there, and you're going to work hard. You know, you can go out and produce, and you know, I think I took that opportunity to even go and challenge some of those other brokers like, hey, I'm going to do more business today than you will, and really try to put a place a bet with them, but it caused me to work even harder and sometimes I beat them sometimes they would me. But it really caused a great morale within the office and really camaraderie and helping one another and working with one another.

And even for the one gentleman that said kind of call me the name, I ended up becoming good friends with him and really just educating him on who I was, even with Mexican American background. You know, he kind of shared like I really didn't know anyone growing up, even in college and didn't have that experience. But we became good friends. It was an opportunity for me to educate him on our Mexican community and even hanging out with some of my cousins and visiting my family.

So it was an opportunity to teach and to educate and really kind of break down some of those barriers. But it did. I think I'm grateful for it because it got me really focused and focused on how I'm going to show and produce at a very young age and really driven to make sure I was hitting goals and ensuring that, you know, I wanted to be number one. I don't want to be the number one Hispanic kid.

I just want to benumber one and all of those lessons I learned from my grandfather, but also playing sports growing up, that you want to be the best and you have to put the time and effort and dedication to do that. And that's that same spirit I still carry with me for my clients and how we can go and perform for them and also kind of be able to go out there and make a difference, and for some of those in underserved communities, folks that grew up like I did, and even other neighborhoods, whether or not just a Latino community, but also the afric American Communicasian community, White community.

It's we have an opportunity to help people out, period, regardless of their background. But taking all those lessons in life, it benefited me and those struggles. I'm actually very appreciative for it because it built up a grit that let me know that there's nothing in life that we can't do if we just put our minds and effort and dedication towards it. You know.

It's interesting. Grit is a big quality I look for in people to stay with it, you know, until you can't and you did, now, but did you Where did you go after the brokerage From. I went to different different opportunities and different kind of firms and was growing my book of business and taking my clients with me. I got to a point where I was running a franchise office and responsible for all the overhead and expenses.

But I also had to give up additional commissions to the home office. And by mistake, I received the facts. This will tell you how long ago it was, but yeah, so facts coming from the fax machine. But yeah, I saw that my office was really generating about eighty five percent of the firm's revenues.

So I thought, maybe I can kind of go and do this on my own. So I went out and bought a company in Wisconsin, reincorporated in Illinois, and you know, I started Kabura Capital and with the help of some of the other some other friends as well and that were helping kind of invest in guiding as well. And I started right before nine to eleven, you know, catastrophe here for the United States, and I put everything I had into it. So the markets, you know, halted, and business just stopped, and I was thinking to myself, what am I going to do?

Now I put everything I had into this company, and once the markets opened up, I just told myself, I've got to go out there and make it work, and really hustled to make sure that we're going to be successful and started to grow the company. It's a lot of lessons learned, a lot of trials and tribulations, but also those challenges and being knocked down so many times in life actually paid off for me because it let me know that I have to get right back up and keep going at it. And sometimes you have to go through brick walls, but you know there there's light at the end of the tunnel as well.

And we made it through kind of nine to eleven and started growing the company and a lot of folks helping us out along the way and continue to help us out. So always full to all those clients. So you survived through nine to eleven, also the financial crisis. And it's in twenty nineteen you've doubled your headcount, in expanding geographically, you've significantly increased annual underwriting, and in twenty twenty one you've expanded internationally.

So I'm really curious about the leadership that you had during this time and what was that grit and those leadership attributes that really kept you going and driving for this now a global strategy. I think what really helped me is the people around me, not just internally because it's we have a great management team, but also seeing all the opportunities globally, not just here in the US or in Chicago, but looking at the markets in the UK, looking at the markets in Latin America, looking at the markets in Asia as well.

Really that great kind of openness that you know it's really up to you and what you want to create, and that I knew there was going to be challenges along the way and hurdles, but with a lot of kind of passion drive and a lot of prayers as well, we've gotten through some very difficult times and it's allowed us to grow, but really kind of keeping a focus on our clients and how we can make a difference for them. And sometimes we're competing against the biggest firms in the world, JP Morgan and Bank of America and Morgan Standing there's other times we're working closely with them, but really going to our clients to know that we can kind of as small as we are, we can be much better than some of the other competitors out there, and it's having that drive and that competitiveness that we wanted to instill, and it's give us a shot, and we'll make sure that we're going to go out there and outperform your expectations and at the end of the day, kind of that's the spirit that we have.

It's a very entrepreneurial spirit. But knowing that we're going to go out there and fight and kick and crawl our way to make sure that we're helping out our clients grow their businesses and helping their municipalities kind of save in some of the costs but also help allowing them to grow their services and their cities and states. So it's very rewarding as well because you know, we've got a great team. It's not something I've done on my own.

I've had a lot of help along the way, and a lot of our clients given us opportunities and taking a risk on us when we're smaller and they weren't sure how we're going to perform, but you know, we go out there and exceed expectations. But it is it goes back to that mantra that we live in a great world. In a great country, and it's up to you what you want to do, and we can go out there and take a whiteboard and really kind of create change and create a path for smaller firms to go out there and grow and grow into much larger firms.

So we've been fortunate and blessed and excited about what's still to come. We're twenty five years old this year, and I'm so excited about the next twenty five years. Congratulations. You know, it's like with us, we say we're small but mighty.

Yes, And you know I always say the good news is you get me. The bad news is you get me, so it's bad. So it sounds like with your clients, you really they get Martin and the team, right, you know, you take ownership. Yes it's our whole team, but we all roll up our sleeves and we want to see how we can help them grow from all aspects, whether it's a school district that we're doing a bond deal, but we also want to look to see how do we help out with financial literacy programs, how do we help out with the great speakers to come and inspire some of these kids.

And it's the special touch that we have with our clients for corporate clients as well, utility clients, technology clients like Apple and Microsoft and others. And they're usually surprised of how well we do, and that's great. But they see even the biggest companies in the world like Black Rock, they see us as a partner and we see them as a part of it well, and we go and look to make to create some creative solutions for them and the clients. Martin, You've built your life around making lives better for others, serving not nonprofits, investing in communities.

Again, you said leading financial literacy and Saint Ignacious had a major impact on you in terms of this. Plus you know your own family upbringing your grandfather. Describe it a little bit about what drives you in really giving back, making it making money, but doing good and making good at the same time and changing people's lives. Yeah, And I think I'm so fortunate and blessed, especially where it came from.

And there's so many stories like that, you know, around the country. But I think what's at the core, and I think, you know, my mother or my father, grandparents and really instilled in me kind of our Catholic faith and really allowing us and for Saint Ignacius as well. I didn't go to St. Ignatius College Prep, but my daughters did, and I went to public schools my whole life.

But I was able to come into a community and serve on a board. And really the philosophy is men and women for others, and it's really taking that to heart that we can go and serve whatever job we may have. You can serve your clients, but you can also serve communities and actually practicing kind of what we preach. And that's something that is really even serving on the board for a Saint Ignacious College Prep and even for the large Diocese of Chicago for the Cardinal's finance counsel, it allows me to take my faith and really go and help out others, not just Catholics but non Catholics, and a view on life and what we need to do to serve as an example and to go out there and really make a difference.

Like, yes, we can go out there and make money. A lot of people can do that, but we're really focused on doing both doing well but also doing good and we know that we can go and help some of those whether it's through scholarships or homeless programs, financial literacy programs, other non for profits that we're supporting to give some of those students that were just like me an opportunity, whether it's to go to a high school or to go on to college, and to give them opportunities and careers that they can then hopefully do the same.

And even for our internship programs, we focus on the business side, but we also have volunteer days for our interns so that they are getting back, so that they see how important it is to go and serve others, and especially in underserved communities that could use our help with financial resources, but also just the time and effort and our treasures. So I think, you know, my faith grew quite a bit serving on the board for Saint Ignatius College Prep. It just showed me really the difference we can make, not just here in the States, but globally.

And I'll always be kind of eternally grateful for the opportunity. And it's just had a tremendous impact on my life and the friendships that I've made and the bonds and the opportunities that we've created for so many others. Is that would not have an opportunity necessarily go to this really great school, it's one of the best in the country, but also their eagerness and just the passion that they have to going out there and volunteering as well. It's not just the academics, it's the faith for nation.

So that's kind of really at the core of whay Am. And you know, I think my parents, but also my grandparents and you know, so many others ants that instill that in me. And also kind of when I was a kid going through some very tough times and not being the greatest kid kind of growing up either get into a lot of fights and get into trouble being able to steer me back towards my faith too, and that's where you know, I've been fortunate and blessed and for my wife and my kids as well, having that and trying to still then because at the end of the day, that's what's really going to matter.

It's not going to matter like what you have in assets or you know, in titles or homes or cars, but really kind of what have you done, what's going to be your legacy in life? And how are people going to. Remember you said? Some didn't think you were going to make it out of the neighborhood to grow a company as you have much less, you know, but you had so much to overcome.

But you're doing the same now with these kids that they have all these disadvantages, but showing them the light in the way. And I want to touch on something else the Career Capital is doing, which is the redevelopment of a thirty two acre site in your midway airport or affordable housing. Could you talk to us, could you call this about a model for the country perhaps? Is that true?

Yes, So we have our real estate development group and we are working on a roughly thirty three acre site. A portion of it is going to be for residential units, which will be about seven hundred residential units, but also commercial units. Is well, but it is a part of town that has been forgotten about and there really hasn't been any investment there probably in the last sixty to seventy years. But this will be an economic engine.

It's about a five hundred and fifty million dollar project. But I think what's what we're excited about for many reasons. It's going to create jobs, it's going to bring more infrastructure to the community, but also it's going to bring kind of different communities together. And here in Chicago sometimes they say we're the most segregated city in the country, but this development is going to have African American, Latino kind of white folks growing up together, living together, being in the backyards, and really sharing special times with each other, whether it's barbecues and playing soccer, in baseball and football there together.

And I think that's what I'm really excited about, that this is going to start to desegregate the city, but really sharing different cultures and communities, really making a whole new kind of community in Chicago. So really excited about it, and you know, I've spoken to other mayors about it. They want us to go and do the same thing there in their respective cities as well, and develop some of those affordable housing units and some will be market but really great units that the residents are going to be proud of.

But also kind of in our partner in Chicago Housing Authority and Habitat, which we know that we're focused on providing that great housing for communities that have been underserved and maybe overlooked. So it's going to be transformational for the whole neighborhood and you know, we have everyone from the state of Illinois to the City of Chicago all kind of weighing in to make this project happen. So this could be a model for other cities to replicate, right and take maybe land or facilities that are not being fully utilized and turn them into affordable housing and commercial space.

Yes, and there'll be a total about seven hundred units, but about eighty percent of them will be affordable. And I think it is something where, you know, housing is one of the biggest issues in the country and it kind of crisis kind of statistics in certain parts of the country. But I think this can serve as a model. And you know, it doesn't come without its challenges, but we know that.

You know, as in other businesses that we've started, you'll get knocked down. You got to get right back up and find a way to make it happen and make sure that we're putting these units up and giving these families some opportunities and some job opportunities as well, because it's something that's really going to change the whole neighborhood, not just the thirty three acre location, but really kind of the whole kind of neighbor of the southwest side of Chicago. Well, you and Career Capital really making a difference in impact investing.

And at the twenty twenty five Ripple of Hope Awards, you made some statements about leaders in general, and the audience was like, I think two thousand people are great leaders there, and you actually asked us to go forward and create more Ripples of Hope. So what would be your advice for other leaders, all of us those listening, What can we do really help change what's happened in our society where there still are too many disadvantage people. I think it's really kind of giving out of our comfort zones and going into the different neighborhoods that you typically haven't been in to really try to get a good understanding of what are the issues and how you can be helpful.

But even for some of those CEOs, and some of the CEOs are have large corporations, but really leaning in and having your employees kind of go and do some volunteer work, you cannot imagine how much of a morale booster that is for the company and for the individuals. They see their jobs as guests. We have to go to work every day, but we're also making the impact and it just gives more fuel to kind of the mission and what you're doing. But I think it's really looking to see what is going to be our legacy as leaders, whether we're leaders of major corporation or leaders of a non for profit, But what is the difference that we can make.

And you know, there are a lot of issues out there, there are a lot of needs, but looking at a couple of different areas that you could focus in on to make a difference, and you'd be surprised even to have our employees go and serve on other boards and bringing their business expertise to some of those non for profit boards. It's like you're bringing an oasis to a desert and how you can help those organizations become more efficient, more effective in serving kind of their mission too.

So I think there's a lot that we could be doing. But even for the corporations, not just giving dollars but also providing kind of support with their employees and other resources as well. So I think it's there's a lot that we could be doing and it's going to help out society, But it takes you out of your comfort zone, which is a little difficult at that times. And sometimes people just want to write a check, which is great.

I think a lot of the non profits need that, but they also need the time and the effort and the people to come in and really wrap their arms around some of these great organizations that can make a difference and that are being successful in their services. Martin Carere, thank you for joining us today and sharing how you measure success not only by the value you bring to clients, but also by the positive impact you make on the world around you. You truly are an inspiration and you are your legacy will long be remembered because you're changing people's lives for the better and making our planet a better place for everyone.

So thank you so much for joining us and sharing your story. Thank you so much, Jan It's been great. It's been a pleasure for me. And keep doing what you're doing as well.

You're helping a lot of executives as well, kind of grow their businesses, but also kind of telling their story because I think a lot of younger folks need to hear that and it's inspiring for them. It's my eighth year of doing podcasts and I will tell you I've learned a lot from great leaders such as yourself and you really are impacting the planet and I think a role model for everybody. So again, congratulations and all you're doing to your people as well at Cabrera Capital.

So I commend you and I thank you for being with us today and to our audience, thank you for tuning into another game changing conversation on leadership reimagined. You can find me on LinkedIn or visit us at elagroup dot com. Thank you for joining us today.