2022 Women’s Tea—Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things
On December 8, 2022, the undergraduate department in the Eller College of Management held its annual Women’s Tea at the Westward Look Resort in Tucson, Arizona.
This year 75 undergrad female students were honored—50 juniors and seniors were honored as Top Collegiate Women and 25 first-year and sophomore students were honored as Rising Stars.
The Eller College also had 15 community honorees, five of which are Eller alumni.
The 2022 Community honorees were:
Monique Rios Mach ’11 BSBA (Marketing). Rios Mach is senior program manager at Vanguard which she started at in 2011 through the Vanguard Accelerated Development Program. She has held several roles in her time at Vanguard spanning sales leadership, consulting, project management and more. Most recently, she has held multiple roles within the support services realm including working as a senior project manager supporting a large-scale transformation of their retail business, leading the Relationship Management and Sales (RMS) Project Management Office, serving as the delivery manager and workforce strategy lead for RMS and working in her latest role as senior program manager for the Vanguard Brokerage Account Program. Rios Mach also sits on the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA) Phoenix board as student affairs director.
Jessica Pensky ’11 BSBA (Accounting), ’13 MSA. Pensky is currently audit senior manager at Ernst & Young (EY) for both private and public companies. In addition to her audit role, she also serves as an independence consultant for G360 companies in the Bay area. Pensky also serves as a lead for EY’s University of Arizona core recruiting team, is chair of the EY Phoenix Latinx Professional Network and is director of events for the Phoenix Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA).
Adriana Martinez ’08 BSBA (Accounting) ’09 MAcc. Martinez is currently president of Casa Martinez Salsas—a family-owned business that she and he father founded together. Martinez and her family were motivated to start Casa Martinez by the fact that they had a truly unique product that was different from all other products available in the U.S. market and saw a real opportunity. To this day, Casa Martinez Salsas are the only salsas in U.S. retailers that are premium, authentic, crafted with fresh vegetables, with a clean label and made in Mexico. Casa Martinez is also a certified Women Owned Company by WBENC, where Martinez is an ambassador. She also serves in the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and has been recognized as one of the most influential women in the food industry by The Shelby Report and Southern Arizona’s 40 Under 40.
Alexa Rodriguez ’19 BSBA (Management and Organizations). Raised in Magdalena de Kino, Sonora, Rodriguez moved to Tucson at the age of 16 determined to be bold and forge a better future for herself. She founded Adela Artisan—named after her grandmother—with the motivation of sharing and celebrating Mexican culture while supporting indigenous artisans. After graduating from Eller, her passion for helping and supporting the community became her career when she began coaching businesses at the Women’s Business Center. Now, Rodriguez is capital access manager for Kiva and advisory services manager for Growth Partners Arizona. Her role is to bring together community partner organizations to expand the reach of these programs in Southern Arizona.