Emanuel Alberto Pleitez (born December 15, 1982) is an American politician and investor, best known for his candidacy in the

2013 Los Angeles mayoral election An election was held on March 5, 2013, to elect the Mayor of Los Angeles, mayor of Los Angeles. No candidate received a majority of the primary votes to be elected outright, and the top two finishers, Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel advanced to ...

."Emanuel Pleitez makes a long shot run for mayor"
Merl, Jean (February 12, 2013). www.latimes.com"Emanuel Pleitez sprints to the finish in long-shot run for Los Angeles mayor"
Slater, Grant (March 1, 2013). www.scpr.org Born and raised in South and East

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, Pleitez was the first of his family to attend college, graduating from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 2006."Former Villaraigosa aide Emanuel Pleitez, 29, to run for mayor"
Zahniser, David (July 6, 2012). www.latimes.com"Meet Emanuel Pleitez"
McDonald, Patrick Range (February 21, 2013). www.laweekly.com Emanuel is a combat veteran and continues to serve in the

United States Army Reserve The United States Army Reserve (USAR) is a Military reserve force, reserve force of the United States Army. Together, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard constitute the Army element of the reserve components of the United States Armed ...

. Emanuel is currently the Chairman of the

Hispanic Heritage Foundation The Hispanic Heritage Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. that works to increase the number of Latina and Latino leaders in society. As of 2010, the Chairman was Pedro José Greer. The foundation hosts several long- ...

and Founder of East Los Capital, a technology-enabled private equity firm based in Los Angeles.

Early life and education

Pleitez was born in

South Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of Downtown Los Angeles, downtown. It is de ...

and raised in the Eastside neighborhood of El Sereno. He is the son of Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants, brought up along with his younger sister by their single mother., Kim, Kenneth (Feb 27, 2009). http://newamericamedia.org/ He attended Woodrow Wilson High School in El Sereno, where he was elected senior class president and earned 19 varsity letters as well as several academic scholarships."7 Teenagers Get Hispanic Heritage Award"
Nguyen, Hang (April 24, 2001). http://www.latimes.com/
Sondheimer, Eric (October 25, 2002). http://www.latimes.com/ He went on to attend Stanford University. During his time at Stanford, Pleitez was involved in many student groups, including the Hispanic Undergraduate Business Association, ASSU student government, and

Alpha Kappa Psi Alpha Kappa Psi (, often stylized as AKPsi) is the oldest and largest business Professional fraternities and sororities, fraternity. The fraternity was founded in 1904 at New York University. It is headquartered in Noblesville, Indiana. Histor ...

, a professional business fraternity. He also took time off from school to work in the political field; he served as a field organizer on

John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served as the 68th United States secretary of state from 2013 to 2017 in the Presidency of Barack Obama#Administration, administration of Barac ...

's presidential campaign, as well as the special assistant to then-councilman

Antonio Villaraigosa Antonio Ramón Villaraigosa (; né Villar Jr. on January 23, 1953) is an American politician who served as the 41st Mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Villaraigosa was a national co-chairman of Hillary C ...

during the councilman’s 2005 mayoral race. While at Stanford, Pleitez was honored with the Jerry I. Porras visionary leadership award and the Cecilia and Tony Burciaga community development award. He graduated from Stanford with a B.A. in

urban studies Urban studies is based on the study of the urban development of cities and regions—it makes up the theory portion of the field of urban planning. This includes studying the history of city development from an architectural point of view, to th ...

in 2006."Hispanic Heritage Foundation Press Release"
(Retrieved July 30, 2012). www.HispanicHeritage.org

Career

Beginning in 2007, Pleitez worked as a financial analyst at

Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many internationa ...

. He left Goldman Sachs when

President Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. Ob ...

was elected in 2008, after being selected to serve as a member of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team. He worked specifically on Treasury Department agency review."Obama-Biden Transition: Agency Review Teams"
(Retrieved July 30, 2011). List of Presidential Transition Team Members. http://change.gov Following the presidential transition, Pleitez ran for Congressional Representative of the 32nd District of California against Gil Cedillo and

Judy Chu Judy May Chu (born July 7, 1953) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for . A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, she has held a seat in Congress since 2009, representing until redistricting. ...

."Young first-time candidate roils race"
Merl, Jean (May 11, 2009). www.latimes.com After the congressional campaign (which ended in May 2009), Pleitez was appointed to the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) as special assistant to chairman

Paul Volcker Paul Adolph Volcker Jr. (September 5, 1927 – December 8, 2019) was an American economist who served as the 12th chair of the Federal Reserve, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. During his tenure as chairman, Volcker was widely ...

."PERAB Blog"
(Retrieved July 30, 2012). List of Blogs by PERAB team members including Emanuel Pleitez There, he "delivered recommendations to President Obama on workforce development, tax reform, financial regulatory reform, infrastructure financing, and residential retrofitting." In August 2010, Pleitez left his government job to work as a management consultant in the Los Angeles office of

McKinsey and Company McKinsey & Company (informally McKinsey or McK) is an American multinational strategy and management consulting firm that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. Founded in 1926 by James O. McKinse ...

."MGI Emerging Equity Gap Report"
Roxburgh et al. (December, 2011). Page 4. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/mgi He left McKinsey and Company in February 2012 to accept a role as the

chief strategy officer A chief strategy officer (CSO) is an executive that usually reports to the CEO and has primary responsibility for strategy formulation and management, including developing the corporate vision and strategy, overseeing strategic planning, and leadi ...

Spokeo Spokeo is a people search website that aggregates data from online and offline sources. History Spokeo was founded in 2006 as a social media aggregator by four graduates from Stanford University — Mike Daly, Harrison Tang, Ray Chen, and Eric ...

, a privately held tech company based in Pasadena."Spokeo Names Emanuel Pleitez as Chief Strategy Officer"
/ref> After Spokeo, Emanuel served as a Commissioner for the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions and Head of Strategy and Business Development for Qlovi, an education technology startup."Garcetti puts former mayoral rival Emanuel Pleitez on pension board"
Zahniser, David (August 14, 2013). www.latimes.com"How These Techies Aim to Close the Achievement Gap"
NBC News Latino (March 26, 2014). nbcnews.com/news/latino Emanuel resigned from the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions to train in the U.S. Army Reserve."Emanuel Pleitez Bails on L.A. City Hall Job — Already"
Maddaus, Gene (September 24, 2014). laweekly.com After U.S. Army training, Emanuel joined the investment team at Sunstone Partners, a Silicon Valley–based private equity firm focused on growth buyout investments in technology-enabled services companies."Sunstone Partners adds five to team and promotes one"
Dorbian, Iris (August 2, 2016). www.pehub.com Emanuel is currently a founder of East Los Capital, a technology-enabled private equity firm. Emanuel Pleitez has been quoted in the press: * in Pensions & Investments regarding pension allocations to hedge funds,"Interview: Pension trustee Emanuel Pleitez explains why L.A. Fire and Police dropped hedge funds"
/ref> * in PE Hub regarding COVID-19 impact on private equity and venture capital portfolio companies,"Tech-focused GPs are adjusting to the new coronavirus reality"
/ref> * in PE Hub regarding how private equity dry powder will not save the economy,"Private equity dry powder to benefit global economies"
/ref> * in Mergermarket regarding venture capital-backed companies leaning on non-bank lenders or venture debt firms to stay afloat during COVID-19 environment,"Startups ask investors to waive rights, turn to debt to stay afloat"
/ref> and * in dot.LA regarding LPs using Proposition 209 as the reason why they can't do anything about diversity despite their ability to gather data and be transparent and be sure that the public knows what they are doing. By not emphasizing diversity, public institutions have tipped the scale of wealth toward a class of white asset managers.
/ref>

Non-profit work

Emanuel Pleitez has been involved in many charitable and

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

projects. While in school at Stanford he was the program coordinator for El Centro Chicano. He currently serves as the chair of the

. From 2008 to 2014 he served on the board of the Salvadoran American Leadership and Educational Fund (SALEF), serving as the Chairman from a position he still retains."An Interview with Emanuel Pleitez, Candidate for LA Mayor"
Landeros, Gabriella (October 17, 2012). Independent Voter Network."Emanuel Pleitez busca ser el primer alcalde salvadoreño de LA"
Gamboa, Ana (August 6, 2012) www.aldianews.com In 2009, he worked as a Development Assistant with the

United Farm Workers The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the National Farm Workers Associatio ...

Foundation. In 2011, Pleitez founded Inspira, a web series featuring inspirational stories of Latino leaders."Meet the Hosts"
(Retrieved July 30, 2011) Inspira "Meet the Hosts" page on Emanuel Pleitez. http://inspiraamerica.org/ He served as the executive producer and host alongside Gabriela Fresquez. He has also served as an advisor to various non-profits, including the New Leaders Council,"New Leaders Council Alumni and Advisors"
(Retrieved July 30, 2012) http://newleaderscouncil.org

No Labels No Labels is an Politics of the United States, American political organization whose stated mission is to support centrism and Bipartisanship in United States politics, bipartisanship through what it calls the "commonsense majority". No Labels w ...

,"About: Emanuel Pleitez"
(Retrieved July 30, 2012). http://www.nolabels.org/our-people and the Woodrow Wilson High School Alumni Foundation. In 2013, he joined the board of directors of California Children's Academy.

2013 Los Angeles mayoral candidacy

Pleitez announced his mayoral candidacy early in July 2012. He cites a “void in the field of candidates” as well as a desire to “inspire and reenergize LA” and to ”represent those voices asking for integrity, hard work, and fair representation of all Angelenos” as some of his reasons for running."Why I'm Running"
Pleitez, Emanuel (July, 2012). www.pleitezforla.com Pleitez was one of two Latino candidates running for mayor of Los Angeles, and said that he planned on running a competitive and unconventional campaign."Emanuel Pleitez, Goldman Alum, Faces Long Odds In Quest To Be Boy Mayor of Los Angeles"
Maddaus, Gene (July 10, 2012). www.laweekly.com On January 3, 2013, Pleitez qualified for City of Los Angeles matching campaign funds, by raising $150,000 in qualifying campaign contributions prior to December 31, 2012. Pleitez failed to make the runoff of the

2013 Los Angeles Mayoral Election An election was held on March 5, 2013, to elect the Mayor of Los Angeles, mayor of Los Angeles. No candidate received a majority of the primary votes to be elected outright, and the top two finishers, Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel advanced to ...

, placing fifth with 15,263 votes and 4% of the vote in the primary."Los Angeles Official Election Results - March 5, 2013"
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pleitez, Emanuel 1982 births American politicians of Salvadoran descent Politicians from Los Angeles 21st-century American politicians Stanford University alumni Living people Woodrow Wilson High School (Los Angeles) alumni American politicians of Mexican descent Hispanic and Latino American people in California politics Goldman Sachs people