Who is Elida Almonte?

An entrepreneur and the founder and president of the Dominican USA Chamber of Commerce, Elida Almonte has devoted her career to building bridges between Dominican talent, enterprise, and opportunity across the diaspora.

Born in Esperanza, in the Dominican Republic’s Valverde province, Almonte emigrated to the United States in 1986 with her mother and two sisters. Her experience as a migrant and entrepreneur informs a body of work centered on organizing, educating, and promoting Dominican merchants, professionals, and entrepreneurs living abroad.

Through DUSACCOM, she established a platform connecting the Dominican business community with local commerce, exports of Dominican products, and new networks of collaboration. In an interview with Revista Factor de Éxito, she explained that the initiative grew out of a need to bring together the diaspora’s diverse commercial, professional, and entrepreneurial sectors while strengthening their productivity and economic presence in the United States.

Her commitment to expanding opportunity for women also led her to create the Association of Dominican Women Entrepreneurs in the United States, an organization focused on the advancement, education, and protection of women in both countries. That same community-centered vision shapes the Dominican Taste Festival, which she founded to bring Dominican gastronomy, culture, tourism, and business to audiences in New York.

Reflecting on her leadership in 2024, Almonte described the Chamber as a platform that gives entrepreneurs tools, networks, and a community in which to collaborate and advance shared interests. Her work brings economic development, cultural diversity, and participation into a single vision: businesses that grow without losing their roots, and a diaspora that turns experience into new possibility.

Her story spans two countries and is guided by a conviction shared across her projects: when a community organizes and expands access to opportunity, its talent can reach further.