Today we’d like to introduce you to Veronica Torres Hazley.
Hi Veronica, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My path to success is defined by resilience, pivoting from a career in hospitality to becoming a wellness entrepreneur and advocate. After overcoming significant personal trauma, including being a teen mother and losing my father and son, and laater mother, I built my current enterprise by focusing on healing, community-building, and advocating for women of color.
Early life and education
Challenging beginnings: Raised in Austin, Torres Hazley experienced significant trauma from a young age, including her parents’ drug use and divorce, and becoming a teenage mother at 15.
Foundational career goal: Motivated to build a better life, she was determined to become the first in her family to attend college. After high school, she attended Johnson & Wales University to pursue her dream of opening a restaurant and graduated with a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management.
Entrepreneurial roots: I was also influenced by her grandparents, who were entrepreneurs and served as my inspiration.
Career trajectory
Hospitality industry: I began my career working in hotel management in Dallas for nearly nine years, including a role at the Intercontinental Hotel Group.
VisitDallas: In 2003, I was recruited by VisitDallas (then the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau), where she worked for over 17years.I led the diversity and inclusion department, seeing it as an opportunity to “sell the entire city”.
Wellness journey and entrepreneurship: While working at VisitDallas, I began my personal wellness journey and started teaching yoga and meditation in the evenings. This led me to open my own studio, V12 Yoga, in downtown Dallas in 2014, with the intention of making yoga accessible to people.
Focus on Latinas: Seeing a need for culturally relevant wellness in the Latino community, she founded the Healthy Latina Lifestyle and the nonprofit Hey Chica! The Hey Chica! movement provides advocacy, self-care, and leadership support for Latina women.
Launching her own enterprise
Torres Hazley Enterprise, LLC: In 2016, I launched her own company, which now serves as the holding company for her wellness brands, including V12 Yoga, Workplace Fit Co., RedBird Rising, and Healthy Latina Lifestyle.
Workplace Fit Co.: She and her husband also co-founded Workplace Fit Co., which provides corporate wellness programming to companies throughout Texas.
Present-day activities and recognition
Today, Torres Hazley is the CEO of Torres Hazley Enterprise and continues to expand her wellness and advocacy initiatives. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards, including:
D CEO Magazine’s Latino Business Leaders award
The Dallas Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award
An Adweek Rising Star Award
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Veronica Torres Hazley has overcome significant personal trauma and systemic obstacles to achieve her goals. Her life story is marked by resilience in the face of immense struggle, which ultimately inspired her work in wellness and community advocacy.
Early life trauma and family struggles
Growing up with addiction: Veronica was raised in poverty by parents who abused drugs. She recalls witnessing her parents do drugs in the house, with needles and drugs openly available.
Violence in the home: At just six years old, she witnessed her father kill another person.
Parental abandonment: After her parents’ divorce, her mother would sometimes abandon her and her siblings for weeks at a time.
Personal hardships and loss
Teenage motherhood: At age 15, Veronica became a mother and was kicked out of her home. She had to work two jobs to pay for child care with family while staying in high school.
Abusive relationship: She was married at 18 but divorced by 21, leaving an abusive relationship.
Death of her father: At age 21, she lost her father to a drug overdose. The tragedy shifted her perspective, fueling her determination and faith.
Loss of a child: A particularly painful struggle was the death of her twin son, who passed away just one day after being born. She has said that living through this loss and healing from it was one of her greatest achievements.
Job loss and broken relationships: Over her journey, she has also dealt with being laid off and experiencing painful breakups with best friends.
Breaking generational patterns: Her story also reflects the difficulty of escaping cycles of trauma and poverty to create a different future for her own children.
Professional and systemic barriers
Structural and cultural barriers: In her professional life, she recognized that many Latinx women face structural barriers like “time poverty,” demanding caregiving responsibilities, and workplace norms that reward burnout.
The “only Latina in the room”: As a Latina entrepreneur, she has spoken about the challenge of being “the only Latina in the room,” which she has worked to overcome by opening doors for other women.
Moving beyond “wellness optics”: She challenges the superficiality of some corporate wellness programs that focus on optics rather than creating real, lasting change for marginalized employees.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Veronica Torres Hazley is a wellness entrepreneur, CEO, and community advocate who uses her personal journey of overcoming trauma to build businesses and nonprofits centered on healing, empowerment, and access to wellness. She is known for her work bringing wellness and business together, particularly for women and within the Latina community.
What she does and specializes in
CEO of Torres Hazley Enterprise, LLC: This holding company includes several wellness brands:
V12 Yoga: A yoga studio she opened to make yoga accessible to people of color.
Workplace Fit Co.: A corporate wellness program that provides onsite fitness activations and wellness sessions to companies across Texas.
Healthy Latina Lifestyle: A brand focused on culturally relevant wellness for the Latina community.
RedBird Rising: A collective that aims to bring community and well-being to life.
Founder of Hey Chica!: This nonprofit focuses on advocacy, self-care, and leadership for Latinas, helping them find their voice and community. It hosts events like summits and networking happy hours to help Latinas connect and support one another.
Consulting and Speaking: She leverages her 25 years of experience in various roles—including hospitality, diversity and inclusion, and marketing—to advise clients. She is a sought-after speaker who often shares her story of resilience to inspire others.
What she is known for
Empowering Latinas: She is widely known for her dedication to empowering Latina women through her Healthy Latina Lifestyle brand and Hey Chica! movement. She helps Latinas prioritize their self-care, overcome obstacles, and build successful careers.
Connecting wellness and business: Torres Hazley has successfully bridged the gap between the corporate world and the wellness industry. Her experience at VisitDallas and her work with Workplace Fit Co. show her ability to create effective corporate wellness and diversity initiatives.
Her personal story of resilience: She is known for transparently sharing her powerful journey of overcoming immense struggles, from teenage motherhood and poverty to losing a child and battling trauma. Her story serves as a foundation for her work, which helps others heal and find their purpose.
What she is most proud of
While her many awards and achievements are a testament to her success, Torres Hazley has stated that one of her greatest achievements was healing from the loss of her twin son. Her ability to overcome profound personal loss and use that experience to find deeper meaning and purpose is a source of immense pride for her. She is also very proud of the community and safe spaces she has created for Latinas and other women of color.
What sets her apart
Her lived experience: Unlike many wellness gurus who start from a place of privilege, Torres Hazley’s work is deeply rooted in her lived experience of poverty and trauma. This allows her to bring authenticity and empathy to her programs and connect with people who are also struggling.
A “by us, for us” approach: By creating spaces and programming specifically for Latinas and other women of color, she addresses a gap in the mainstream wellness industry that often ignores their unique needs.
Emphasis on collective empowerment: Her “Hey Chica, how can we help you?” approach and her emphasis on “finding your voice and your tribe” demonstrate her focus on collective empowerment rather than individual success alone. She uses her seat at the table to create opportunities for other women to join her.
Holistic, culturally-relevant wellness: Torres Hazley challenges the typical, often superficial, corporate wellness model by advocating for authentic, culturally relevant well-being. For the Latino community, this means a focus on “home-made” and holistic satisfaction rather than diet fads or quick fixes.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Most people familiar with Veronica Torres Hazley and her brands may not know the full extent of the devastating trauma she overcame as a child. While she publicly shares her story of resilience, the specific and severe hardships she endured during her youth paint a much more profound picture of her journey toward healing and empowerment.
Key facts about her upbringing that many might find surprising include:
Witnessing extreme violence: At just six years old, she witnessed her father kill someone.
Growing up with active addiction: She was raised in a home where her parents did drugs, with needles and narcotics openly accessible.
Experiencing parental abandonment: After her parents’ divorce, she and her siblings were sometimes abandoned by their mother for weeks at a time.
Teenage motherhood: At age 15, she became pregnant and was kicked out of her home. She continued to attend high school while working two jobs to pay for daycare.
Her ability to not only survive these circumstances but also to embrace her past as a driving force for her wellness advocacy sets her apart. While her public brand focuses on healing and empowerment, the depth of her personal journey demonstrates a level of resilience that far exceeds the average person’s experience. This intimate knowledge of struggle allows her to connect authentically with communities who face systemic barriers to wellness, differentiating her approach from that of many others in the wellness industry.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.v12yoga.com
- Instagram: @healthylatinalifestyle
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VeronicaTorresHazley
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/torresveronica/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@VeronicaTorresHazley
