Born and raised between borders, from her birth city of Laredo, TX to her mother's native Nuevo Laredo, MX, Ashley Ugarte grew up surrounded by her family's rich cultural and traditions. As a chocolate lover from day one, Ashley's favorite tradition was sipping on traditional Mexican hot chocolate while making tamales with her family. She attributes her vision for Hijita to the strong matriarchs in her life, her mother, abuelitas and her only sister. Prior to founding Hijita, Ashley was head chocolatier at Dandelion Chocolate, a world-renown bean-to-bar chocolate company based in San Francisco, where she co-spearheaded the launch of their award-winning confections program.