Julissa is developing a program that trains and employs women of color from underserved communities for high-paying careers in design. By combining hands-on learning, mentorship, and job placement, the program creates a scalable model and clear path to economic mobility for women that don't have access to traditional career pipelines.
Julissa is an entrepreneur, first year MBA candidate at MIT Sloan, and former designer at companies like Airbnb, Afterpay, and Walmart.
Raised in a predominantly Latinx, low-income neighborhood in Miami, Julissa saw early on how brilliant, driven people in her community were too often shut out of high-paying career paths—not because of a lack of talent, but because of a lack of access. That reality became even more personal during her first design job at Airbnb, where she noticed that many of her colleagues had also not followed traditional design school paths. They had simply been given a chance to learn on the job. She began to ask: what if more people from communities like hers were given that same opportunity?
In 2022, she launched VECTR Studio, a design agency and career accelerator that trains and hires women of color from underserved backgrounds for high-paying roles in design. The program combines technical instruction, mentorship, and job placement to create a clear, scalable path to economic mobility. Her mission is rooted in the belief that talent is everywhere, even if opportunity isn’t.
At MIT, Julissa is the incoming Co-President of the Retail and Consumer Goods Club and a participant in programs like Sandbox and MIT Fuse, where she is learning the skills to scale her venture. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and Literature from Harvard University. In her free time, Julissa enjoys Latin dancing and hip hop, baking, traveling, and building community wherever she goes.