The making of a Tampa entrepreneur

This story initially appeared in Florida Trend Journal.

Cesar Hernandez is a initially-generation American of Mayan immigrants from Guatemala’s K’iche Tribe. He grew up inadequate in Brooklyn.

He was arrested at age 13 and put in a method aimed at serving to internal-metropolis youth keep out of jail. “I want I could say my lifestyle turned close to and it was wonderful, but it was a journey,” he claims. By his early 20s, he had been arrested five extra instances.

Hernandez landed a football scholarship at a college or university in New Mexico but wound up shedding it. He returned to New York and enrolled in a community school, homeless and sleeping in trains at evening. “I just saved saying to myself, ‘this is going to spend off,’ even owning all my issues in a black trash bag and no person definitely viewing my opportunity.”

Then Hernandez hit rock bottom. Hoping to secure his sister from a gang of adult men threatening her, he fought them off. But in a in shape of rage, he acquired into an altercation with a detective, landing him in a jail intricate regarded as “the tombs,” so named because of the deficiency of home windows in that jail. “I’m sitting there in the tombs. There is a bathroom seat ideal up coming to me, and I just recall praying: God, get me out of here. I’m heading to depart Brooklyn.”

He pleaded responsible and confronted the likelihood of a 15-calendar year sentence for aggravated assault on a detective. But the scenario was dropped following the officer stated he was amazed that Hernandez took obligation for his actions and confirmed remorse.

Fulfilling a assure

Hernandez resolved to start anew in Florida. “Three months afterwards, I was in Tampa,” he claims. He had investigated a couple faculties and resolved to utilize to the College of South Florida. “A year later on, I’m a student overall body president. I just under no circumstances looked again. I eventually felt absolutely free,” he states. “My attitude wasn’t I will need to endure. It was what can I produce? What can I master?”

In his purpose as scholar human body president, Hernandez after filibustered for 24 hrs so that tuition would not go up. He aided put in spot a pupil eco-friendly electricity price. It is contributed to the university putting in photo voltaic panels on its structures and other sustainability initiatives. He advocated for 24/7 library access for pupils.

In the course of his term, Hernandez also was a USF trustee and led the administration of a $16-million spending plan for pupil government. He sat on the state’s Board of Governors. He was invited to the White Residence to fulfill President Obama. “A good deal of people associations have in excess of to this working day.”

Hernandez earned undergraduate levels in biomedical science, political science and economics.

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The building of an entrepreneur

“Tampa is sacred to me. It is why I add to the metropolis, and it’s why I’m tremendous active,” states Hernandez, 37, who launched the Tampa Bay Latin Chamber of Commerce and the Tampa Bay Mobility Alliance and serves in United Way Suncoast’s Younger Leaders Modern society and other group groups.

Hernandez labored as a neighborhood organizer for the University Place CDC in his new metropolis, concentrating on social fairness problems, including an initiative to decrease street criminal offense by applying outreach workers, some of whom were being ex-convicts and former gang users. He labored on widening transit accessibility mainly because if you can not get to your job, it is impossible to rise up. He figured out about authorities and policy as a legislative aide for the Tampa City Council and commenced to fully grasp that changemakers are formed by finding out how to navigate federal government, organization and coverage.

Placing this awareness jointly, in 2017 he launched Omni General public, a consulting organization whose solutions include things like tech PR, media relations and government relations for emerging technologies.

Tesla was his first massive tech consumer. He has also labored with startups about the entire world. He lobbied for the use of scooters as an substitute type of transportation and is doing work with Hyperloop Transportation Technologies on other non-regular forms of transportation. Omni also counts as purchasers Lazarillo, a Chilean startup with an application for the blind that could be rolled out soon in Tampa and an AI enterprise that aims to track down likely shooters in colleges by means of predictive analytics.

Developing:

• Omni grew to become a seven-determine corporation by yr a few and now has about 40 shoppers, from Latin The usa to South Africa, and 11 staff.
• In September, Hernandez graduated from Oxford University with an MBA. He was captivated by Oxford’s novel approach to “systempreneurship,” which includes navigating field, government and politics, societal norms and neighborhood for the advantage of a specific goal. “I understood if I was a very good adviser for my clients, I essential to go in which the wellsprings of awareness for these novel consulting principles were rising, and that was at Oxford.”