Annia Aleman, the innovation director at mentorship and coworking space provider Ascender, plays a pivotal role in Pittsburgh’s startup ecosystem. One of the ways this is likely best seen is with Aleman’s commitment to fostering representation, resource accessibility and inclusivity within the local entrepreneurship community, which in addition to her work at East Liberty-based Ascender also included a stint in helping to run the City of Pittsburgh’s PGH Lab startup incubator program. But what inspires her most is entrepreneurs’ determination to tackle significant challenges, and she is dedicated to supporting their endeavors at Ascender as these founders strive to make a positive impact on the world.
What qualities do you believe are essential for an entrepreneur to succeed?
One of the things that we tell our entrepreneurs is it really comes down to coachability and a willingness to take feedback and to also act on feedback. In regards to coachability, we have seen founders who are very receptive to coaching and perhaps they provide some pushback, but ultimately they try to see where we are coming from and they take it from there. But if we see folks who don’t maybe want the help, then it is very difficult for us to do anything to really help them. The other piece of it is receiving feedback, asking for feedback and acting on it. It’s one thing to just get feedback. Entrepreneurs have to listen to many folks, so only they can determine what is the feedback that they want to apply and implement. But the ones who reflect on it, that take it in and then act on it, we see those entrepreneurs succeed the most.
What personal values or principles guide your work in your day-to-day operations?
I’m committed to creating and contributing to social impact, and my way of doing that is in the entrepreneurship sector. One of the main drivers for me is making sure that we have more representation in our ecosystem, making sure that people have access to the resources that they need and that they want to grow. I believe in equity and inclusion in communities and how we can utilize our collective power to better society.
What are you excited about in the months ahead?
I’m excited to close out the year strong. We have some very exciting programs still going on at Ascender during the fall with networking opportunities. We just closed down a mini-grants campaign, and we gave away $15,000 to Latin-owned businesses, and I’m looking forward to that follow-up as well as figuring out how their businesses are doing with their new funds. We have a lot of planning to do for 2024. We have aggressive and ambitious goals to continue funding our entrepreneurs and bringing in new experts to Pittsburgh: We have [venture capital firm] Chloe Capital coming up again in the spring, and we’d like to find women entrepreneurs or women-identifying entrepreneurs [to attend this event]. On a personal level, I love traveling. Every year I go back to my home country, Nicaragua, so I look forward to going to Nicaragua for the holidays and then spending a little bit more time reflecting on the year, planning and then figuring out what 2024 will look like.
Can you share some details about your immigration to the U.S. and what life has been like since?
I was born and raised in Nicaragua and came to the U.S. when I was 16 years old. I went to Pittsburgh Public Schools, was a Pittsburgh Promise graduate; and I am very proud of that because I am a result of the public school system here in Pittsburgh, a city that has opened up doors for me. I’m also an English-as-a-second-language student: I came here without knowing the language or the culture, which brought many challenges, but also many opportunities. Then I went to study at Chatham University for economics and public policy and did my master’s at CMU in public policy and management. Then I worked in Washington, D.C., and I worked in New York, but when an opportunity came up to contribute to Pittsburgh in innovation and entrepreneurship, I took it immediately. So I came to work for the City of Pittsburgh. I stayed there for four years, and now I’m in almost my fourth year at Ascender working even more deeply with entrepreneurs. I think representation matters, and right now I still don’t see many folks that look like me in some spaces. I want to work to change that.
Do you have any favorite Latin American restaurants here in Pittsburgh?
Some of my favorites are Cilantro y Ajo, a Venezuelan street food restaurant; I love California Taco Shop, they’re on Route 8 and they’re about to open another one on Butler Street. I think those are my go-to Latin restaurants and then of course there is Las Palmas in Beechview that has really fresh tacos any time that you go there.
How do you believe the local culture and environment influence the entrepreneurs and startups here that you work with?
I think our size really helps us. I think being a medium-sized city means you can make connections, you can make access to resources very streamlined and accessible to a lot of entrepreneurs. On the other side, I think we can still make sure that more communities are represented in entrepreneurship and in the founders that we see.
What is it about the entrepreneurial spirit or mindset that you find most inspiring?
For me, the biggest thing is solving big problems that people just think are not really solvable, but that someone puts it upon themselves and their team to say, “I want to find a solution to this.” And while the problem might be too big for one team, person or business, they at least have the courage to make something happen. And I see that every day with many of our entrepreneurs, and it really is the thing that drives me every day to work hard on helping them.
ABOUT ANNIA ALEMAN:
Title: Innovation director, Ascender
Age: 33
First job: Digitizing books for a book club in Nicaragua at the age of 14
Education: B.A., global policy studies and economics, Chatham University; master of science, public policy & management, Carnegie Mellon University
Residence: Highland Park
Family: Parents, sister, partner, many friends and two dog nephews
Hobbies: Biking and traveling the world
Causes: Immigrants’ rights, tech and small business advocacy, minority representation in tech, minority equal pay, Latine women in business
