Beatriz "BB" Otero: The Pioneer Who Helped Build Latino Washington

Few people have shaped Washington’s Latino community as profoundly as Beatriz “BB” Otero. Before Latino leadership in this city had the infrastructure or a playbook, BB was helping to build it.

Born in Bolivia, Otero was 10 when her family moved to Washington and then Montgomery County. She attended the University of Maryland before returning to Washington, where she began a career focused on expanding opportunity for children, families, and the communities she called home.

In 1986, she opened a bilingual childcare program for 15 children in the basement of a Columbia Heights church. Families came for care, but Otero saw a bigger need. She built CentroNía into a regional institution that, over more than 25 years, served more than 1,200 children and families through early childhood education, Head Start, workforce development, and family support. She also founded DC Bilingual Public Charter School, extending her commitment to education and opportunity beyond early childhood.

But BB was just getting started, and her work didn’t stop at CentroNía. She became a leader in Washington’s Latino civic life, including serving with the Latino Civil Rights Task Force and running for the Ward 1 seat on the D.C. Board of Education in 1992, becoming the first Latino candidate to seek the seat in more than a decade. In 2000, she was named Washingtonian of the Year.

In 2011, Mayor Vincent Gray appointed Otero Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, a role she held for four years. She oversaw a broad portfolio spanning health, behavioral health, human services, child welfare, youth rehabilitation, disability services, aging, and more. She brought the same conviction she had applied at CentroNía: families experience life as a whole, not as a collection of government programs.

Her work also brought her back to Montgomery County, where she spent seven years serving the community in leadership and advisory roles. Her influence has reached well beyond the region, from humanitarian relief efforts in Latin America to advising European cities on immigrant conflict.

Today, she leads Otero Strategy Group and serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Policy, advising leaders on health, education, human services, and community development.

Across nonprofit and government leadership, Otero has had a rare vantage point: building organizations from the ground up, leading complex public systems, and helping shape the policies that affect the people those systems are meant to serve. 

As BB puts it, “Throughout my nonprofit and government work, it has been my honor and great privilege to serve the DC and Montgomery County communities. I so appreciate the parents that trusted their children to me and the politicians that trusted me to lead.”

The Latino leadership landscape looks very different today. We now have institutions, networks, and leaders that make it easier to gain access, have representation, and create opportunities for the community. When BB was getting started, much of that foundation was still missing. She helped create the infrastructure needed to access services, shape policy, and expand opportunity. She also made sure Latino concerns were heard in the rooms where decisions were made. 

That is the legacy that earns Beatriz “BB” Otero a place among LEN’s Top 10 Latino Voices of 2026.