This month, as the world celebrates Latino heritage, Karla Barberena reminds us that the most powerful legacy doesn’t live in the past. It lives in what we decide to do with it.
Barberena was born in El Salvador, a country that taught her — through its history, its people, and its women — that adversity does not have to write the ending of any story. That lesson would take her further than perhaps even she imagined.
Today she is the founder and CEO of five companies across four countries, including KB Collection Internacional, KPBM Care Professional, MB Logistic, and Laboratorio Cosmético SABESA — a Salvadoran institution founded in 1964 that she acquired in 2023, becoming the steward of an industrial legacy while propelling it into the future. She also founded Aprende para Emprender, a program dedicated to training women in entrepreneurship and economic development, because she understood that building a legacy without passing it on is never enough.
But the most important chapter of her story does not appear in any business record. It lives in what she survived. After facing cancer, Barberena found purpose in the pain and turned it into a book: Trained to Die, Destined to Live, published in 2026, is now her most powerful tool on international stages across Mexico, Peru, Chile and beyond.
Businesswoman of the Year BAC 2024. El Salvador’s representative at SelectUSA 2025. Judge at Miss Universe El Salvador. Regional Director of the World Association of Beauty Educators for Central America. In every one of those spaces, Barberena does not arrive alone. She arrives carrying her country and every Latina woman still waiting for her turn. Karla Barberena did not inherit the path. She built it. And she left it open for every woman who comes after.
Your book was born from a very personal battle. Where does that strength come from?
The origin of my strength is, first, in God. It also comes from my roots, my family, and the women who taught me that adversity does not have to write the ending of our story. When I faced cancer, I discovered a strength I didn’t know I had. Today I know that being strong doesn’t mean not crying or not being afraid. It means deciding to get back up one more time.
When you acquired SABESA, you took on 60 years of Salvadoran history. What does it mean to lead that legacy as a woman?
From the very first moment I understood that I wasn’t simply buying a company; I was receiving a piece of Salvadoran industrial history. When one of our products leaves the plant, we are not just exporting a product — we are exporting Salvadoran talent, work, and capability. I want my journey to tell other women: yes, you can lead, create jobs, and transform companies without losing who you are.
On international stages, do you feel the weight of representing something greater than yourself?
Yes, and it’s a feeling that’s hard to put into words. Behind me stand many Salvadoran and Latin American women who work, who build, who perhaps are still waiting for that first opportunity to show what they are capable of. Every door that a woman manages to open can make the path a little easier for the one who comes after her.
What legacy would you leave a young Latina girl today?
The certainty that where she comes from does not determine how far she can go. Money can run out. A business can grow or disappear. But when a woman learns to rise and to turn difficulties into wisdom, she carries within her a wealth that no one can take away. If someday a girl hears my story, I would want her to think: “If she could get back up so many times and keep dreaming, so can I.”
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