Rudy Espinoza
President & CEO of Inclusive Action for the City, a Los Angeles nonprofit advancing economic opportunity through small-business capital, coaching, community ownership, and advocacy for street vendors, immigrant entrepreneurs, and other under-resourced workers. A 2026 McNulty Prize Winner, he has helped build Inclusive Action’s model for equitable local economic development.
Purpose-Driven Leadership Begins Before Strategy Is Clear
At the Resnick Aspen Action Forum, 2026 McNulty Prize winners Anna Novosad, Rudy Espinoza and Tom McDougall argued that purpose-driven leadership begins before certainty, funding or a finished strategy is in place. Novosad described building savED from an initial effort to assess damaged schools in Ukraine; Espinoza framed advocacy as a decision to take a side alongside people excluded from capital; and McDougall called for confronting the environmental and human costs omitted from market prices. Their shared case was that sustaining such commitments requires care for one’s own capacity and collaboration with others—not faith that a rescuer will arrive.
Affordable Capital Can Move Informal Entrepreneurs Into the Formal Economy
Rudy Espinoza, president and CEO of Inclusive Action for the City, argues that an economy that works for more people must bring informal entrepreneurs into formal systems, offer affordable capital to owners excluded from conventional lending, and protect businesses from displacement. His organization has deployed more than $10 million in loans and grants to support recovery and create paths to ownership, while challenging financial and property systems that, he says, deny many workers and small-business owners the chance to build lasting security.