Norma Gallegos Valles, Director of programs, Centro
What are the most challenging and rewarding aspects of your job?
One of the most challenging, and beautiful, aspects of my work is staying creative. Building and reimagining programs that respond to the evolving needs of the Latinx community is deeply collaborative, but it’s also a creative process. When systems push our communities toward scarcity or limitation, creativity becomes a form of resistance. It allows us to imagine and build opportunities and spaces that reflect what our communities need and deserve.
(The most rewarding) is hearing community members talk about realizing new possibilities for themselves at Centro. It’s also the people I work alongside and what we’re able to co-create together.
Who do you look up to or admire in business?
Through Centro, I was introduced to Flourish Agenda, a California nonprofit that partners with organizations to cultivate cultures rooted in healing, justice and love, with a focus on young people of color. I deeply admire their work because it reflects a healing-centered approach to youth development that feels intentional and transformative. I continue to think about how elements of it can inform and strengthen the work I do with youth and families.
What has been the high point of your career so far?
Helping expand and grow initiatives statewide. Two of those initiatives are Centro’s future Tech Hub and the Colibrà Fellowship, designed to train future bilingual, multicultural legal professionals.
Do you have any secret talents or abilities?
A surprising talent I have is design thinking. I naturally approach both physical spaces and complex systems by reimagining how they function, how people experience them and how they can be improved to better serve human needs. I use design thinking to connect ideas, people and opportunities across different worlds like education, workforce development, technology, culture, storytelling and engagement.
What are your guilty pleasures?
My guilty pleasures are ’90s music in Spanish and English, stand-up comedy, good food and dancing. I also love road trips. On a road trip through Tennessee and the surrounding areas near the Smoky Mountains, I ended up having an unexpected Dolly Parton experience, not part of the itinerary, but very much part of the learning.
