Councilmember Barroso de Padilla was born and raised on the eastside of Columbus where her family still lives today. Her love for this community inspires her to raise my own daughters in the same neighborhood where she grew up. She is a mother, a wife and daughter of working-class immigrants who came to America because they believed deeply in democracy and opportunity.

Lourdes Barroso de Padilla has an extensive background in youth development and leadership. She has served with City Year, an education focused organization dedicated to helping students and schools succeed for more than 20 years. Barroso de Padilla has helped to found five of City Year’s twenty nine sites across the country, and has worked at all levels of the organization. She is a certified Youth Development Trainer and was awarded the Hewlett Packard Alumni Leadership Award in for her impact and service to the organization.

Barroso de Padilla is a graduate of Project Diversity, Leadership Columbus, and the Academy for Leadership and Governance Executive Fellowship program. She has served as a Commissioner with the Ohio Latino Affairs Commission, as a founding member of the Create Columbus Commission and as a board member for Directions for Youth and Families and a member of the United Way’s Education Impact Council and Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Currently she serves as a board member of the YWCA Columbus, a member of MORPC Regional Policy Roundtable, Advisory Board Member for the Columbus Chapter of the New Leaders Council, member of The Columbus Police Chief’s Advisory Panel and a member of the Columbus City Schools Community Engagement Committee.

As the Vice President of Stakeholder Engagement for City Year Inc. Barroso de Padilla oversees the organization’s major gifts, corporate and grant programs. Since its inception more than a decade ago Barroso de Padilla has been engaged and currently serves as the Director for the Latina Mentoring Academy a unique professional development and mentoring program for Latinas in Central Ohio.

Barroso de Padilla was featured in the inaugural edition of The Women’s Book and Who’s Who in Latino Columbus as well as WELD Ohio’s Women Welding the Way Calendar. She has been honored as one of Business First’s 40 under 40, and was named a Distinguished Hispanic Ohioan by the Ohio Commission on Latino Affairs. In November of 2021, Barroso de Padilla made history by becoming the first Latina to be elected as a member of the Columbus City Council.

Lourdes is a bilingual first generation Cuban-American who was born and raised on the eastside of Columbus and is a product of the Columbus public school system. She resides with her husband, Ernesto, and daughters, Eva and Valentina in Eastmoor.