When Ana Pinczuk fled her native Argentina in 1976 amid a coup d’état, there was an understandable amount of uncertainty about her future.

It’s natural to assign a defined career path to the CEO of a company. But if he doesn’t subscribe to such a notion, should anyone else?

If a single word were to describe Kim Rivera, it would be “adaptable.” The C-Suite attorney of the Fortune 500 firm DaVita HealthCare Partners dealt with more tragedy and responsibility before the age of 16 than most adults, but she didn’t allow those obstacles to keep her from reaching her destination.

Paloma Izquierdo-Hernandez is a self-proclaimed “Bronx girl.” Raised in the New York City borough and now president and CEO of Urban Health Plan (UHP), one of New York’s most celebrated institutions, there are few things the executive is more proud of than her home turf—which is why she works so hard for its residents.

“I’m an inner-city, Spanish-speaking, low-income, free-lunch, first-in-her-family-to-go-to-college girl,” said Miriam Rivera at an awards dinner in her honor.

Marie Quintero-Johnson was persistent. At least once per month, she went to the vice president of business development to tell him she wanted to work with him.

Although Marcos Gonzalez loved the close-knit home his Mexican parents built in Los Angeles in the 1960s, he remembers thinking, “What else is out there?”

Working hard is part of Paula Arrojo’s DNA. The daughter of Spanish immigrants, Arrojo watched her parents give everything to build a life in America.

There’s a famous scene in the classic 1967 film The Graduate in which a family friend approaches Dustin Hoffman’s character with an unprompted bit of advice.

When she was a young girl growing up in Chicago, Clarissa Cerda’s father told her a story about a church sweeper.