Adrienne Rose Martinez ’01, MBA ’08, a business information security officer at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and a community leader in Charlotte, N.C., is this year’s recipient of the Carlos R. Quintanilla Distinguished Latino/Latina Alumni Award. Named in honor of its 2011 recipient, Carlos R. Quintanilla, MBA ’80, a Johnson Advisory Council member and champion of the school’s efforts in Latin America, this award recognizes alumni for exceptional achievements and significant contributions to their professions, community, and society as a whole; for their demonstrated commitment to Johnson; and for promoting the advancement of Latinos and Latinas in the business world.
Martinez grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles. Among the first in her family to earn a college degree, she followed an older brother to Cornell, enrolling in the ILR School as an undergraduate. After working at a small West Coast nonprofit, she returned for an MBA. The Toigo Foundation, which helps minorities pursue careers in financial services, linked her with the right resources, and she was named a Forté Foundation fellow at Johnson.
Asked what skills she learned at the school that have been most useful in her career, she says: “Everything!” When she enrolled in Johnson’s capital markets and asset management immersion, she knew she wanted to be a relationship manager, she says. “I just didn’t know what kind. Johnson helped me put those final pieces together.”
After graduating, Martinez joined Deutsche Bank in New York City, where she worked for more than five years with institutional clients in asset and wealth management. In 2014, she moved to Charlotte, N.C., where she did a stint as director of corporate and foundation relations at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Earlier this year, a friend told her about the position at Bank of America. “I was up for a change and it was a good opportunity that fit my skill set,” she says.
Martinez lives in Brightwalk, a mixed-income neighborhood in the center of Charlotte. Living there, she says, was an intentional decision to help remediate one of the city’s greatest social challenges — boosting economic mobility.
“I’m a strong believer in reaching back and helping others,” says Martinez, who calls her volunteering as resident leader of her neighborhood “my second full-time job.” Among other things, she has helped execute on several grants that have brought diverse communities together through cleanups, a concert series and exercise classes in a neighborhood park, and a four-block-long celebration of National Night Out.
An active volunteer with Johnson and Cornell, Martinez is now president of the university’s Alumni Association of Charlotte. In those two roles she looks for engagement opportunities such as Charlotte’s first-ever Johnson predictions dinner, during which Professor Risa Mish and alumni made predictions on everything from next year’s Super Bowl winner to where the Dow would be in a year.
But Martinez says her most rewarding involvement is being a big sister (as part of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America program) to a young Latina whose family has limited resources. “When my partner, Kinson, and I learned that she and her brother had never seen the ocean, we took them on a trip to the beach. Now she has a whole army of our friends working to create opportunities for her. That’s the stuff I live for.”
Martinez hopes to see more Latinos and Latinas in leadership roles throughout society. “We make up such a large percentage of the U.S. population. Why aren’t we equally represented in the classrooms and boardrooms?” she asks.
“I am so thrilled that Johnson chose Adrienne for the Quintanilla Award,” says Mish. “Although she is so modest that she’s the last person who would ever seek recognition of her many contributions to Cornell and to her community, she is among those who most deserve it.”
“Adrienne embodies all that this award represents,” says Sara Andress, Johnson director of alumni affairs. “The list of Cornell and Johnson organizations she has been involved with is long — Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network, the Cornell Latino Alumni Association, Cornell Mosaic, and Johnson Diversity Council, among others. Wherever she is, she gives of her time to her alma mater, her community, and the advancement of underrepresented minorities. We are honored to recognize her incredible commitment.” Read more.
