Meet the Team
Danilo Rodríguez
Executive Director
From a family of small-scale producers in San Miguel Escobar, Danilo has been exposed to coffee production throughout his life. His professional career with DLG began in 2014, and over the years, he has held various positions within the organization. He holds two degrees from the University of Mariano Galvez: a Bachelor's in Tourism and Hospitality and a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Project Management, Monitoring, and Evaluation. Combining his educational experience and passion for the De La Gente mission, Danilo is the Executive Director, where he crafts and steers strategies for generating impact within coffee-growing communities in his home country.
Silvia Méndez
Financial Administrator
Silvia is originally from Guatemala City. She holds a Bachelor’s in Public Accounting and Auditing from the University of San Carlos and a Master's in Financial Administration with a Financial Risks concentration from the University of Mariano Gálvez. Silvia has always had a deep appreciation for coffee as a consumer, but it wasn’t until working with coffee-producing communities in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, while completing her thesis on coffee commercialization that she could truly understand the work that goes into each cup. This experience sparked her interest in working in the non-profit sector and being part of DLG’s impact in coffee-producing communities. To use her education to support these communities, she serves as the financial manager for De La Gente, where she enjoys analyzing and managing DLG's finances, knowing that the ultimate beneficiaries of her work are the farmers themselves from our partner cooperatives.
Claudia Zapeta
Community Tourism Program Manager
Claudia grew up in Guatemala City but has worked designing and promoting community tourism models in the communities around Guatemala's highly visited Quetzal Natural Reserve (Biotopo del Quetzal) in Baja Verapaz. Her first connection to coffee growing occurred while pursuing a degree in Tourism at the University of San Carlos when research took her into coffee-producing communities to develop a coffee tourism circuit to serve as a model for cooperatives in Acatenango, one of Guatemala’s specialty coffee regions. She has worked in various tourism roles throughout the country and now brings that experience to De La Gente as the Community Tourism Program Manager, where she is eager to generate socio-economic impact while showing visitors the realities and richness of her country.
Ronald Vega
Immersion Program Manager & Coffee Educator
Ronald was born in Antigua and raised in San Miguel Escobar. At an early age, he began questioning the social inequalities and injustices he observed around him. Wanting to grasp Guatemala’s past better to understand its current state fully, Ronald graduated from the University of San Carlos of Guatemala in 2015 with a history degree and is pursuing his Master's in Anthropology from the same institution. As De La Gente’s Immersion Program Manager and coffee educator, he can actively support his community while challenging privileged structures that have historically negatively impacted coffee-growing communities.
Cecilia Díaz
Marketing & Communications Manager
Cecilia is originally from Guatemala City but has called Antigua her home for over a decade. While studying at the University of Mariano Gálvez, she enrolled in marketing courses and was hooked! She brings her ongoing enthusiasm as the Marketing & Communications Manager at De La Gente, where she can give free rein to her creativity and analyze behaviors and metrics to create strategies that will expose the De La Gente brand and mission. Recognizing the intriguing and tumultuous history of coffee in Guatemala, she seeks to use her marketing background and skill set to make that story known, give voice to the producers, and uplift their efforts to make coffee farming a valued profession.
Marcela Méndez
Coffee Relationship Coordinator
Born and raised in Antigua, Guatemala, Marcela was the black sheep in her family, the only one who did not start their day with coffee. Even though she wasn’t a coffee drinker, she became acutely aware of the industry while pursuing her degree in International Business from Loyola Andalucía University in Spain and going on to study International Affairs at Rafael Landívar University in Guatemala. However, it wasn’t until the onset of the pandemic, when studying from home, that she started exploring, consuming, and enjoying different coffees grown near Antigua. As De La Gente’s Coffee Relationship Coordinator, she seeks to link her newfound appreciation for coffee with her understanding of the global market to cultivate authentic connections between our buyers and the producers from Guatemala.
Moises Hernández
Roasted Coffee Sales Coordinator
While originally from Chimaltenango, Moises was raised in the community of San Miguel Escobar, where he spent ample time in his family’s coffee fields interacting with visitors from around the world. Along the way, he developed an interest and passion for the tourism industry, which led him to pursue a degree in tourism and hospitality and begin his professional career with De La Gente in 2019. Over the years, he’s grown into his current role of Roasted Coffee Sales Coordinator, contributing to the organization’s social impact business model to generate opportunities and dignified wages for coffee-growing families. He complements this skill set by pursuing a Bachelor in Administration from the Universidad Rural de Guatemala.
Ani Valladares
Immersion Program Coordinator
Ani, originally from Guatemala City, has a certificate in innovative education from the University of Galileo and is pursuing a degree in anthropology at the University of San Carlos in 2022. Her coffee connection has primarily been as a consumer and learning about the industry in Guatemala from a historical and political perspective. With an acute awareness of the structural exploitation of coffee farmers, she pursued an internship opportunity with De La Gente, in which she could interact with and understand the socio-economic context of coffee production in the community of San Miguel Escobar. Inspired to continue uplifting coffee-growing communities, she serves as De La Gente’s Immersion Program Coordinator, designing and facilitating opportunities for program participants to develop connections with producers and understand the realities of coffee in Guatemala.
Ludving Gómez
Accounting Associate
Ludving, originally from San Lucas, Sacatepéquez, is pursuing his Business Administration degree at the University of Mariano Gálvez. With professional experience in accounting and customer service under his belt in the for-profit industry, he brings that knowledge and experience to the nonprofit sector as the De La Gente Accounting Associate. With interest in the complete coffee process, from cultivation to export, he appreciates promoting the work of small-scale producers so that their coffee is consumed and appreciated both within Guatemala and on an international level.
Jonattan Escobar
Immersion Program Trip Facilitator
Jonattan is originally from El Progreso, but split his childhood between Guatemala and Canada. His first stint with De La Gente was in 2018 and 2019, an experience that exposed him to the history of coffee and Guatemala, allowed him to interact with producers, and lead university groups as part of our Immersion Program. He went on to pursue educational opportunities including studying architecture at Cégep D Vieux in Montreal, Canada, and Financial Planning at the University of Dalhousie in Nova Scotia. Jonattan rejoins the De La Gente team as the Immersion Program Trip Facilitator, a position that encapsulates his diverse professional and educational background. As a French, Spanish, and English speaker, he is excited to be in a role that utilizes his linguistic skills to connect visitors with small scale farmers.
De La Gente Board of Directors
Rupesh Shah
President
Rupesh currently leads product management for Granular, the software arm of Corteva Agriscience, a leading agricultural company. Rupesh has over 20 years of product experience, striving to solve critical customer problems by developing deep customer empathy and working closely with design, engineering, and data science to craft and build innovative software and data products for end users. Previously, Rupesh held leadership roles in product development at Khan Academy, Infusionsoft, LAUNCH, Simpa Energy, and Intuit, in addition to leading sustainability and solar initiatives at Simpa Energy and Intuit. Rupesh is an advisor to several high-potential social enterprises through Rippleworks. Rupesh holds a BA in sociology from UC San Diego and an MBA from Northwestern University.
Julio Martinez Anderson
Vice President
Julio is the Strategic Alliances Manager for Pomona Impact Foundation, an organization working to strengthen the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Central America. He is a board member of Enactus Guatemala, which promotes the creation of social enterprises through university students. As a professor at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, he teaches entrepreneurship and collaborates with various social impact projects. He applies this combination of expertise and professional experience to the role of Vice President of the Board of Directors, to play a role in generating impact within coffee-growing communities in his home country.
David Wilson
Member
David began his professional life as an architect. The busy days in front of a computer screen were made better by his morning cup of coffee, and thus, his love for coffee grew. He decided to take a leap of faith and leave architecture to become a barista. Not long after that, David accepted a job as Head Roaster at a specialty coffee shop in Reno before starting his own business, Vertical Coffee Roasters, where he began traveling to coffee-producing countries looking for a more equitable coffee chain. David is now settled in Reno and continues to connect the dots between farmer and cup in the city’s growing coffee community.
Catriona Forrester
Treasurer
Catriona’s ample years of international equities experience as an analyst and portfolio manager have provided her with expertise in financial modeling and analysis, portfolio management, building relationships with investors, and contributing to capital-raising efforts. She has a BA from the University of New South Wales and postgraduate degrees in finance, accounting, and commercial law from Macquarie University, Deakin University, and the University of Technology, Sydney.
Les Stoneham
Member
Les is an experienced and accomplished coffee professional. His constant drive to learn and develop others' passions and talents shapes the culture of his company, Deeper Roots Coffee. He has been involved in all aspects of the coffee industry, from roasting technical work, training, and sourcing. In 2009, Les founded Deeper Roots Development to sustain his continued work with coffee farmers in Guatemala and further development work with coffee growers worldwide.
Kurt Sippel
Member
Kurt began his journey in the financial and economic world by working on labor statistics more than 30 years ago after graduating with a degree in applied economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He used his experience of measuring statistics to understand trends, and the growing but also unknown use of technology at the time to take a leap of faith and create his firm named Applied Tech. Together with his team, they worked to serve the IT needs of thousands of businesses in Wisconsin. More than 20 years later, Kurt sits on the board of directors at Applied Tech and spends much of his time mentoring leadership with small startup businesses in both Wisconsin and Central America.