October 7, 2022
Kobre & Kim continues to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month by honoring Maria Teresa Kumar, a Colombian American political rights activist and the President and CEO of Voto Latino. Kumar was born in Bogota, Colombia and grew up in Sonoma, California where she attended the University of California, Davis. She later earned a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
In 2004, Kumar joined Voto Latino, a political advocacy group in Washington DC aimed at increasing voter registration and participation in elections among Latinos in the U.S. While at Voto Latino, Kumar leveraged her knowledge of technology and marketing to create initiatives such as the Be Counted campaign, which created a bilingual phone app in partnership with the U.S Census Bureau to increase Latino participation with the 2010 census. Voto Latino also assists Latinos with engaging health providers in association with the Affordable Care Act.
Under Kumar’s leadership, Voto Latino has registered over half a million new Latino voters. Her outstanding leadership within the Latino community earned her an Emmy nomination in 2010 for her role in the creation of the MSNBC special, Beyond Borderlines. In 2013, Elle Magazine named her one of the ten most influential women in Washington DC. In 2017, Hispanic Business named her one of the 100 most influential Latinos in America.