Claudia Romo Edelman has spent her professional life building and promoting brands for global social causes, but launching a venture of her own required her to confront a different fundamental question: Who should own the products that carry Mexican culture and heritage into the global marketplace?
Her answer is Sotol Romo, a premium spirits brand produced in the northern state of Chihuahua, Mexico. Romo Edelman had recently introduced the brand to the market when she sat down for an interview with Hispanic Executive at the AVANCE Global 2026 conference in Las Vegas.
Reflecting on the positioning of Mexican products on the world stage, she captured her ambition succinctly. “It’s fine to think of us like Cholula, but also think of us like Chanel,” she said.
For Romo Edelman, Mexican identity firmly belongs in the upper echelons of the luxury market. After years of working in high-level communications and advocacy for major humanitarian organizations, she wanted to translate that deep-seated conviction into a business enterprise of her own design.
As the founder of We Are All Human and Hispanic Star, Romo Edelman has long dedicated her career to reshaping how Latinos are perceived by the broader public, as well as how they view their own potential and place in society. During periods like Hispanic Heritage Month, that advocacy involves equipping organizations with shared data and cohesive messaging so that their collective efforts reinforce one another across industries and regions.
However, growing recognition and visibility naturally raise a subsequent, more demanding question. Once people fully understand the true scale of their economic influence, how do they choose to use it?
Romo Edelman viewed AVANCE Global as an ideal venue to address that next crucial step. The event served as a gathering place for connecting leaders across diverse industries who could make deliberate, coordinated choices together regarding corporate contracts, consumer spending, and the active support of emerging Latino-owned businesses.
“The question now is clear,” Romo Edelman noted. “We’re powerful. The question is, what do I do with this power?”
For her, one tangible answer was to step into the role of a business owner. She identified a unique opportunity to build an authentic Mexican luxury brand centered around a traditional spirit that many international consumers had yet to discover. Her own family’s background and experience producing sotol provided a natural starting point for the venture.
Pursuing this path also meant embracing significant risks by stepping into an entirely unfamiliar role. She described an
alcoholic beverage industry traditionally dominated by men, noting that it represents a notoriously difficult market for new entrants, compounded by the intricate work of introducing consumers to a spirit category they may never have heard of before.
“It is a new journey, it’s a new venture,” she acknowledged, highlighting the steep learning curve and the perseverance required to carve out space in a competitive global market.
Her ambition, however, extends far beyond the bottle. Produced in northern Mexico from the Dasylirion plant—a botanical distinct from the blue agave used to manufacture tequila and mezcal—sotol offers a distinct vehicle to introduce consumers to a different, less-represented region of the country.
Romo Edelman hopes that cultivating international demand for the spirit can stimulate job creation and generate lasting economic opportunity for the region where it is rooted. For her, growing the category is inextricably linked to growing her own company.
This entrepreneurial ambition directly connects her business enterprise to the broader community she has spent years advocating for. At the AVANCE conference, she emphasized the impactful choices that Latinos can make as everyday consumers, strategic business partners, and institutional owners, and considered what those collective decisions might build over the next twenty-five years.
“We’re moving from economic participation to economic ownership,” she stated.
With the launch and growth of Sotol Romo, Romo Edelman is actively making that historic move herself.
