Michael Barrera is an attorney with over 30 years of business, legal, non-profit and government experience. As a recognized national leader in the business community and Hispanic community, The LIBRE Initiative (LIBRE), a non-profit non-partisan organization that promotes economic prosperity for the Latino community in America, has appointed Mr. Barrera as its National Director of Coalitions and Entrepreneurship. In his role, Mr. Barrera oversees coalition building efforts with Hispanic and business groups, helps grow LIBRE’s community outreach and serves as a national and regional spokesperson for the organization. He previously served as the Regional Director for Western States wherein he oversaw relationship building efforts with the Latino and Conservative communities in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

Mr. Barrera previously served as President of the Business Information Clearinghouse (BIC), a national non-profit that provided multi-lingual business resources for entrepreneurs. Mr. Barrera also served as President and CEO of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), an organization that represented over 2 million Hispanic businesses and local chambers nationwide. Prior to the USHCC, Mr. Barrera served as the National Ombudsman for the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) where he assisted small businesses in regulatory disputes with federal regulators. He also led the SBA’s Office of Capital Access, which oversaw a $76 billion dollar loan portfolio, the Office of Government Contracting/Business Development, the Office of Entrepreneurial Development and helped launch a highly successful Business Matchmaking program, a federal government and corporate procurement initiative.

In 2008, Latin Business Magazine named Mr. Barrera as one of the top 100 influential Hispanics in Business. In 2007, Diversity Business.Com named him as one of “America’s Top Diversity Advocates” a list that included former President Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey.

Mr. Barrera received his law degree from the University of Texas School Of Law in 1989 and a bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University in 1982. He was also educated at Harvard Business School and the Marshall School of Business at USC.