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In a new book, Esther Elena López-Mulnix celebrates the careers of eight super-successful Latinas.

In a new book, Esther Elena López-Mulnix celebrates the careers of eight super-successful Latinas.

In her new book, Latinas in the Workplace: An Emerging Leadership Force, psychology professor and consultant Esther Elena López-Mulnix offers a compelling counterpoint to some sobering realities, one that she hopes will inspire a new generation of Latinas to seize opportunities for betterment and find their inner strength.

Women have long outnumbered men on college campuses in the U.S.  Now, they even earn a disproportionate share of master’s degrees. Increasingly, they’re enrolling in programs that have traditionally been the province of men, including engineering and business administration.

Women hold more than 51 percent of the nation’s managerial and professional jobs, and are likely to outpace men in 13 of 15 projected growth industries, The Atlantic magazine recently noted.

Yet challenges remain. Women still must contend with income inequality and bias. Latina professionals often face the added burdens of discrimination and cultural stereotypes.

Ms. López-Mulnix and her co-authors, Mimi Wolverton, a retired professor of higher education; and elementary school principal Salwa A. Zaki, celebrate the lives and careers of eight uber-successful Hispanic women. Their book, the third in Stylus Publishing’s Journeys to Leadership series about extraordinary women who have blazed paths to success in male-dominated arenas, reveals the range of options available to ambitious Latinas.

The women featured in the book include a foundation president, two business CEOs, a doctor, a former college president, a teacher and author, and two school superintendents.

Yet they have several notable traits in common: All have a strong sense of family and cultural heritage, and each was determined to become educated and succeed on her own terms.

It’s a combination that Ms. López-Mulnix knows well from personal experience. A native of Monterrey, Mexico, Ms. López-Mulnix earned a doctorate in counselor education and supervision at Syracuse University before embarking on an academic career that has included appointments in the U.S., Mexico, Israel and China. She was recently named vice chancellor of academic affairs at CETYS Universidad  in Mexicali, Mexico, and continues to serve as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, a quarterly academic journal published by Sage Publications.

LatinBusinessToday recently caught up with Ms. López-Mulnix, in between trips to conferences in the United Arab Emirates and San Francisco, to ask her about Latinas in the Workplace.

LBT: What do you hope to accomplish with this book?
EELM: To illuminate pathways to success for Latina women.

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