Dedicated to growing Hispanic businesses

Age: 27

Title: President

Organization: Northwest Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

Edgar Candelas is the current president of the Northwest Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a chamber dedicated to supporting Hispanic small businesses in suburban Chicago - land. Candelas has been involved with NWHCC for several years and served on its board before becoming president in 2022. Under his leadership, the organization has experienced significant growth by helping small businesses through programming, advocacy, collaboration and by offering other business resources.

Candelas’ passion for financial literacy stems from his personal experience as a small business owner. Alongside his uncle, he operated a logistics business in Chicagoland that ultimately failed due to a lack of resources and coaching.

Given access to the resources available today, their business might still be operating. This experience inspired Candelas to study finance and make a difference in the community by ensuring that all Hispanic businesses have access to the resources they need to succeed.

Age: 29

Title: Founder & CEO

Organization: MFGWorx Inc.

Joel Calderon’s parents came to the United States as immigrants, and their first jobs were working for minimum wage in factories in Chicago. He grew up on the South Side of Chicago, then moved to Somonauk, a small town an hour to the southwest.

Financially his family always struggled, and they left the city due to dangerous experiences, but his parents always taught him to put his head down and create his own path.

Calderon spent more than six years doing talent acquisition and human resources in manufacturing, and he found himself in a position to offer opportunities to people. It was a full circle because he was helping people in the same position his parents were in when they arrived in the United States.

To expand those opportunities, he founded MFGWorx, a live chat hiring platform that connects hiring managers to talent in the manufacturing space in real time. MFGWorx is a portfolio company of Techstars, a business-accelerator program, and it was accepted into a workforce development program that has a 1% acceptance.