Jose L. Prendes, Founder & CEO
PureFormulas.com
Jose L. Prendes, 46, was born into Cuba’s communist regime and would have remained there if not for his audacious mother. In 1985 she fled with Prendes and his sister to South America. Six years later they moved to the U.S. Eventually settling in Miami, Florida. Today Prendes is the Founder and CEO of PureFormulas.com, an e-commerce site that sells pure and high-grade natural health supplements.
PureFormulas has grown into one of the biggest health product suppliers in the country. In fact in 2011, it made Inc.com’s 500 lists for the categories of Fastest Growing Health Companies and Fastest Growing Companies in Florida, Prendes also got a nod and was named one of the Top 10 Latino Entrepreneurs.
Prior to founding PureFormulas in 2007, Prendes studied agricultural engineering in college, but did not finish. In 2001, he founded VetAmerica.com, a pet and veterinary supplies e-commerce website. It was at this company that Prendes gained experience with e-commerce sites, which eventually helped with the creation of PureFormulas.
Words to Live By:
“First, be kind to everyone you touch,”
Prendes has said.
“Second, invest in your people. Don’t just enjoy your work, but be fanatical about it.”
Raul Russi, CEO
Acacia Network
Raul Russi is the CEO of Acacia Network Inc., where he manages the day-to-day operations of the largest Puerto Rican-founded organization in New York. The housing, economic and social services organization that brings a new name to an old movement. Once known as nine different individual organizations — including the Puerto Rican Organization to Motivate, Enlighten And Serve Addicts, Inc. (PROMESA) and the East Harlem Council For Community Improvement –Acacia’s goal is to “partner with communities, lead change, and promote healthy and prosperous individuals and families,” for the Latino community throughout New York City. The merging of organizations and restructuring of others occurred under Russi’s watch.
Before becoming head honcho at Acacia, Russi had gone from one facet of public service to another. The Puerto Rico-born, New York-raised Russi was a police officer in Buffalo, New York until he was wounded in the line of duty. At the time he was also the city’s first Latino police officer and was awarded the department’s Purple Heart for his injury. A conversation with a friend during his recovery caused him to change paths and so began the second act of his career: a calling to social justice that would help elect the county’s first Latino judge as well as increase the number of corrections officers in the city’s system. During that time Russi created the Consortium of Spanish Speaking Organizations, the first full service agency headed by a Latino in Buffalo. His dedication to community helped him create the first residential rehab center in Western New York known as Horizon Village.
Words to Live By:
“We have to have our own home-grown heroes,”
Russi says.
“We have to be able to get services from people who look like us. It helps us understand our own value as a people and as a community. It helps us to feel that we are not victims, but masters of our own destiny.”