Yorka Velasco-Caballero is a seasoned professional with an entrepreneurial spirit and a proven leader with over 21 years of experience in the areas of sales, marketing, and business development. She is currently a Key Account Manager with Keurig Green Mountain where she is responsible in driving commercial contracts in the West Region targeting Fortune 1000 companies. In her previous role as Division Sales Manager with Avon Products, she lead a high performing team to the number three spot in sales nationally. She was a two time winner of the President’s Award for Sales Excellence, a member of the Network of Executive Women, President for the National Society of Hispanic MBA’s (NSHMBA), winner of the San Antonio Business Journal’s 2012 Women in Leadership -Volunteer Leadership Award and holds a Green Belt in Six Sigma.
Yorka’s vast experience in marketing, sales and business development comes from various roles she fulfilled in the areas of field sales, training, project management, process improvement, planning & advertising. She was also a co-founder of Kazos Group Inc., an online company designed to bring inventory opportunities and digital strategies to online merchants.
Because of her passion for diversity and inclusion, she was selected to Target’s Women in Leadership Training, making her one of the youngest women to participate in this elite training program. She is a member of the steering committee at Keurig NEW-Women’s Network. That same passion continued to drive her work at the advertising agency level where, she developed strategic Hispanic programs implemented nationally for brands such as Coca-Cola®, Hasbro® and AOL® Latino.
Yorka serves and has served in many volunteer leadership roles such as the former Vice-President of Hispanic Leadership Organization (HALO). As an active member of NSHMBA now Prospanica, she designed, developed and implemented the first Women In Leadership Symposium for the San Antonio chapter. She also co-chaired for NSHMBAs Golf Tournament with the objective to raising funds for the NSHMBA Foundation Scholarship Program. These scholarships assist local students enrolled or planning to enroll in a Master’s degree program in Management/Business.
Yorka’s education includes a double major from the University of Kansas in Economics and Business and, a minor in Latin American Studies. She later obtained an MBA from the University of Incarnate Word, where she also received an “Outstanding Achievement Award” in International Relations for work done in Morelos, Mexico.
Born in Oruro, Bolivia, she moved to the United States at 15 years of age with no previous knowledge of the English language. As the family settled in the small city of Topeka, KS, her father, a very strict engineer, required both Yorka and her younger brother to memorize five vocabulary words and their definitions in English every day. Very soon, she overcame the language barrier and began to excel in her classes. Yorka believes that the discipline her father and mother taught her was pivotal in her early successes. She continues to live and work with that same discipline which is visible in her work ethic. As a freshman in college and a means to pay for her education, Yorka discovered her gift in sales by obtaining top sales awards for six consecutive months by selling high-end cutlery sets. At that point, she knew she had found her calling. Her deep passion for people, sales and service is what drives her work every day.
She calls San Antonio her home, where she lives with her husband Sam and the two loves of her life; Samuel and Isabella.
