The C Word’s Hispanic Heritage Month Series: A Colombian Broadcast Journalist Claims a Seat at the Table

With Hispanic Heritage Month still being celebrated, another story on an empowering Latina calls for sharing. Our second featured Latina for C-Word’s Hispanic Heritage Month series is Silvana Henao, a Talent Producer for CNBC covering business.

“When I started working at CNBC, I had no knowledge of business news,” said Henao. “The more I learned about business, finance, and the economy, I realized the importance of what CNBC reports on.”

Henao was born in Paterson, New Jersey to an immigrant mother who arrived from Colombia at the age of 17 with her older sister. Henao mentioned her father went to jail for around 11-12 years when her mother was pregnant with her middle sister while she happened to be a year and a half.

“My mom had my sister in Colombia and ended up staying there to finish high school and eventually returned to the states and left both my sister and me there with our grandparents while she got a job and was more settled before she could come back for me,” explained Henao. “She brought me back to the states when I was seven, while my sister had to remain in Colombia because she was born in Colombia.”

With this being the case, Henao’s mother had to submit paperwork, which took longer because Henao’s mother was only a resident of the United States at the time. It wasn’t until her sister was nine years old that she was finally able to come to the states, which was also a challenge because it would’ve been much harder for Henao’s mom to take care of two little girls on her own at the time. 

“She worked very hard including weekends when I would join her on Saturdays to deliver meals on wheels,” she said. “I watched her work so hard to provide for us.”

Henao went to public schools and there onto a state college. Since her mother was not able to pay for college, she took out student loans and worked 30-37 hours a week to pay for her education, needs, and to help at home. 

Once 2007 rolled in, Henao began her quest at CNBC as a Segment Producer and was inspired to obtain a career in media when she learned that Hispanics were at a disadvantage...not to mention that the knowledge on financial literacy is rather low rather than high, which is a difference she desires to make within the community.

“I want to bring the Hispanic community information they can use,” she said. “I have been doing this for almost four years now via a bi-weekly segment I do for Telemundo from CNBC called ‘Tu Dinero Es Tu Futuro’ and I also have a weekly segment called “Informe CNBC”, which airs three times a week and I give the three headlines in the business world in Spanish for the Telemundo audiences around the country.”

Henao has a passion for covering personal finance in Spanish because she wants to give information people can utilize to prepare for their financial future and manage current situations. Not to mention, she enjoys discussing the importance of saving for retirement, while it’s so much better to start as early in life as possible, it’s never too late to begin. Therefore, Henao provides that sense of faith through her segments.

Even though Henao has successfully carved her path as a latina at CNBC as a prominent talent producer, she feels she was brought up to not interrupt or be outspoken. Due to this, she felt she held herself back from a plethora of opportunities, especially as a Latina woman. 

“I think the more people hear your ideas, the more they know your knowledge and capabilities--- maybe if I had been way more outspoken, I would’ve climbed much sooner,” she expressed. “Speaking up and letting people know you are around matters, even if it’s something as simple as saying hello to someone walking down the hallway. You’ll never know how you’ll have to interact with that person in the future and how you’ll be able to help each other and you’ll be remembered.”

Recently, Henao took on a new duty in the last week of September, which consists of doing live, English speaking segments for CNBC which are streamed at local NBC stations around the country. These segments are for the early morning shows, where Henao provides the business headlines, in addition to Amazon’s Alexa and CNBC’s streaming service with headlines. 

“This has been huge!,” she said with joy. “I am this Colombian girl from Paterson giving the headlines of the day on CNBC in the morning!”

Follow Henao on Instagram over @silvanahenaotv to keep an update on both her Spanish and English segments for CNBC.