Nancy Roldán Johnson was born and raised in Bridgeport, CT to Puerto Rican parents. She worked her way through school to become the first in her extended family of twenty-one aunts and uncles and forty-nine cousins to attend and graduate college. She is an alumnus of Housatonic Community College and Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, CT where she earned, with honors, a B.S. in International Business Management. She is a 2011 Elm City Leadership Fellow with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and is currently participating in the Community Leadership Program with the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund in New Haven, CT.

 

Nancy has gained success in the fields of operations planning and business process management often becoming among the youngest and first Latinas to climb the corporate ranks in organizations such as: BIC Corporation, Playtex Apparel, and Warnaco, Inc. After thirteen dedicated years in the corporate world, Nancy decided to stay home to raise her children.

Ready to give back to her community, it was during her time at home that she created The Latina A.R.M.Y., Inc., (Accomplished Role models Motivating Young Latinas), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to celebrate and empower young Latinas by providing inspirational role models and introducing powerful life skills for personal excellence. Unfortunately, today many young Latinas hold among the highest attempted suicide, teen pregnancy, and high school dropout rates in the country. The Latina A.R.M.Y. is committed to seeing these trends reverse. To date the Latina A.R.M.Y. has reached over 800 girls – many of whom say they feel better about themselves, they feel positive about their future, and they have learned ways to express themselves safely. The organization’s goal is to empower one million young Latinas in the United States.

For her work in The Latina A.R.M.Y., Inc. since its incorporation in March 2008, Nancy has been honored as a 2008 Woman of Distinction by the Connecticut Girl Scouts of Connecticut, she was featured in the November 2008 issue of O, the Oprah Magazine as a winner of their first-ever Women Rule! leadership contest as a future leader who is changing the world, and she was named winner of the 2009 New England Region Soroptimist International “Woman Making a Difference” award, an honor given at the international level to women such as Princess Diana, former child actor and U.S. Ambassador Shirley Temple Black, and Philippines President Corazon Aquino.

 

Nancy is passionate about her work as an activist and travels extensively to introduce The Latina A.R.M.Y. in other communities and to teach people how they, too, can begin to effect positive change.