Since he was a child, Federico Lozano has been haunted by the suffering of Mexican immigrants all around him. “Growing up in San Diego as an immigrant myself, I saw the conflicts, tensions, and tragedies that come with economic disadvantage and forced immigration,” he recalls. “However, unlike the vast majority of migrants, I was fortunate enough to have been born into a family that offered me a great education,” he explains. The specter of police raiding his elementary school and dragging an illegally harbored Mexican family of five, drenched, out of the sewage drain, was one particularly painful moment for him. “I knew that someday I would address this terrible social and economic problem,” he says.

Lozano, whose father is Mexican and whose mother is Spanish, became a sophisticated world traveler and business person in his own right through international education and a five-year stint as vice president of his family’s own Mexico-city based import firm. He carried out undergraduate work in international relations, economics, and business in Boston and Barcelona, earning full tuition and serving as valedictorian of his class at LaSalle-Universitat Ramon Llull in Barcelona. During college, Lozano wrote his thesis on the link between international migration and development, which won a prize for the best thesis in the school’s history.

When he entered the Stanford MBA program in 2007, he shared the idea for an organization that would pair disadvantaged workers with jobs among classmates and professors, garnering significant support in the form of contacts, information, and other resources. A summer serving as a strategic business development intern with D.light Design, a global social enterprise run by Stanford graduates, further provided the knowledge and exposure he needed to launch his own venture. Lozano, who has been building the business plan for Puentes Global for the last two years, is now launching the effort with the help of the first Stanford Social Innovation Fellowship.