Guillermo Quinteros is a program director at the left-of-center Solidago Foundation. His father was a university professor in Peru until a Cold War-era coup by a Communist-aligned military dictatorship; Quinteros later moved to Honduras and Mexico, becoming a left-wing activist. ¹

Quinteros later moved to the United States, attending university in Puerto Rico and Massachusetts. He joined Solidago Foundation in 2006 and has sat on the boards of a number of left-of-center grantmaking and advocacy groups.

Early Life and Education

Quinteros was born in Peru, where his father worked as a university professor. Following the 1968 military coup in Peru, his father lost his job and ended up securing a position in Honduras, where Quinteros lived for two years, before his family relocated to Mexico, where he lived for about six years.

In Mexico, Quinteros became a far-left student activist. He has said, “When I was in high school in Mexico we were extremely active in my school. We were organizing marches, remembering Allende in Chile, protesting against the military in Argentina, supporting strikes in Mexico, doing literacy projects in the mountains of Oaxaca… we were very politically active.” ²

Quinteros attended college at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Pedras from 1985 to 1988 where he majored in economics. ³ He later lamented that the economics department was not geared towards the leftist approach to political economy he was used to from growing up in Latin America. ⁴ From 1996 to 1998, he attended MIT where he earned a graduate degree in urban planning. ⁵

Non-Profit Involvement

From July of 2002 to September of 2005, Quinteros was the executive director of the Commonwealth Coalition, an advocacy non-profit based in Boston that focused on education. ⁶ From 2006 until the present, Quinteros has worked at the Solidago Foundation, first as a program officer and then as a program director. ⁷

The Solidago Foundation is a left wing 501(c)(3) organization that provides grants to support to left-wing causes focused on the environment, labor, and economics. The Solidago Foundation also started a lobbying arm in 2006 to participate directly in electoral politics. ⁸ At Solidago, Quinteros “has focused on helping build the electoral and political infrastructure of the social justice sector to contest for governance power.” ⁹

Quinteros is also listed as a program officer at the See Forward Foundation, a social welfare organization that provides grants to left-liberal-progressive organizations. ^{10 11}

In addition to his work as a programs director, Quinteros serves on the board of directors of several left-wing non-profits. He has previously been on the board of the Proteus Fund, and the Funders Committee in Civic Participation, and Social Justice Infrastructure Funders. He is currently on the board of radical environmentalist group Greenpeace, and while his Solidago bio lists him as being on the board of the left-wing non-profit The Workers Lab, he is not listed as being on the board of directors on its website. ^{12 13}

1. Szakos, Kristin Layng, and Joe Szakos. We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk about What They Do– and Why. 1st ed. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2007. Pg. 130-131
2. Szakos, Kristin Layng, and Joe Szakos. We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk about What They Do– and Why. 1st ed. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2007. Pg. 130-131
3. “”Guillermo Quinteros”.” LinkedIn. Accessed July 8, 2019. https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillermo-quinteros-466a7537/.
4. Szakos, Kristin Layng, and Joe Szakos. We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk about What They Do– and Why. 1st ed. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2007. Pg. 131
5. “Guillermo Quinteros.” LinkedIn. Accessed July 8, 2019. https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillermo-quinteros-466a7537/.
6. “Guillermo Quinteros.” LinkedIn. Accessed July 8, 2019. https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillermo-quinteros-466a7537/.
7. “Guillermo Quinteros.” LinkedIn. Accessed July 8, 2019. https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillermo-quinteros-466a7537/.
8. “About.” Solidago. Accessed July 08, 2019. https://solidago.org/about/.
9. “Guillermo Quinteros.” Solidago. Accessed July 08, 2019. https://solidago.org/people/guillermo-quinteros/.
10. “About.” See Forward Fund. Accessed July 08, 2019. https://seeforwardfund.org/about-2/.
11. “See Forward Team.” See Forward Fund. Accessed July 08, 2019. https://seeforwardfund.org/about-2/staff-contacts/.
12. “Guillermo Quinteros.” Solidago. Accessed July 08, 2019. https://solidago.org/people/guillermo-quinteros/.
13. “Team.” The Workers Lab. June 13, 2019. Accessed July 08, 2019. https://theworkerslab.com/team/.