Anna Escobedo Cabral

Her father's family had come to the United States from Mexico in the early 1900s as did her maternal grandmother.

Alfred Escobedo, her paternal grandfather, also participated in the Bracero Program.

Cabral's maternal grandfather was a Native American, born and raised on a reservation in Southern California and her maternal grandmother was from Mexico.

Anna Escobedo Cabral (born October 12, 1959) is an American politician who served as the Unit Chief for Strategic Communications in the External Relations Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) from 2009 to 2018.

Today, she and her husband serve as partners of the Cabral Group, a consulting and public policy firm.

She also serves as an independent director for Navient, a member of the Comcast NBCU diversity council, and as an advisor to the Libra Group, and Valaurum.

Her current nonprofit commitments include serving as chair of the BBVA Microfinance Foundation, chair of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, and Treasurer of Lideramos, a national Latino organization focused on providing leadership training to grassroots community advocates.

The oldest of five children, Cabral managed to attend Burbank Elementary School in the 1960s despite her family's hectic schedule: her father picked the fields of the Santa Clara Valley and both parents obtained various types of employment throughout the San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

By the time Cabral entered high school, the family had moved 20 times.

At very early ages, Cabral and her siblings had to collect scrap metal and salvage old motor parts with their father that they would then sell to help the family survive.

Her father had seriously injured his back, significantly impacting his ability to provide.

Her mother worked several jobs, so, as the eldest child, Cabral often had the additional responsibility of caring for her siblings.

By age 16, Cabral was already on track to finishing high school early; after graduation, she intended to find a full-time job to help her parents financially.

Her math teacher, Philip Lamm, convinced her instead to consider higher education.

Lamm, she recalled in a later interview, "hand wrote the application. He told me that this was a better plan and found scholarship money for me to go to college."

Lamm also helped her overcome her family's initial misgivings.

Cabral initially attended the University of California at Santa Cruz majoring in political science.

In her sophomore year, she met Victor Cabral, a law student at the University of California, Davis; not long after this, she transferred to Davis.

Between her sophomore and junior years, the couple was married and Cabral soon left school for a few years to raise a family.

During this time, she also managed her husband's law firm.

Cabral eventually returned to the university and graduated in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in political science.

After considering several graduate schools, Cabral enrolled in a joint-degree program with Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University and the Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley.

She and her family moved to Massachusetts.

However, halfway through the program, Cabral decided to withdraw from the law school component in order to take care of family needs.

In 1990, she obtained her Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard.

In 1990, Cabral's husband obtained a job with the Justice Department; the rest of the family moved with him to Washington, D.C. The following year, Ms. Cabral went to work for Senator Orrin G. Hatch, as Executive Staff Director of the Task Force on Hispanic Affairs in the Senate Republican Conference which he chaired.

In this capacity, she managed a caucus of 25 U.S. senators working on issues related to the Hispanic community.

In 1993, in addition to her work with the Republican Conference, Cabral assumed the post of Deputy Staff Director for the US Senate Judiciary committee for Senator Hatch, helping it to oversee federal judicial nominations as well as various Justice-related legislation.

After several years, Cabral left government service but remained in the public sector.

In 1999, she was hired as president and CEO of Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility.

A Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit coalition of 16 of the largest Hispanic organizations in the nation, HACR worked with Fortune 500 companies to increase Hispanic representation in employment, procurement, philanthropy, and governance.

Under Cabral's leadership, HACR published a best practices series, and instituted a partnership with Harvard Business School to provide executive training programs in Corporate Governance Best Practices to community leaders.

Cabral participated on a number of advisory panels during this time.

In 2002, she was appointed by President George W. Bush to his Council on the 21st Century Workplace, providing guidance to the White House and the Department of Labor on work-related issues.

That same year, she was named to a two-year term on the Diversity Council of the Premier Automotive Group, an outreach effort of the Ford Motor Company.

She also served on the boards of the Sewall–Belmont House and Museum, a historic center commemorating women's suffrage, and Martha's Table, a nonprofit that assists the less fortunate to better themselves through volunteer activities.

Prior to joining the IDB, Cabral served as the 42nd Treasurer of the United States from January 19, 2005, to January 20, 2009.

She became the highest-ranking Latina in the George W. Bush administration after the resignation of Rosario Marin.

Cabral, a third-generation Mexican-American, was born in San Bernardino, California to Francisco Escobedo and Teresa Beltran.

She eventually completed her Juris Doctor degree at George Mason University School of Law in 2008.