Brewing Change: How Leiva's Coffee is Scaling a Mission Through RAMP

Third-generation coffee farmer Geovanni Leiva is transforming a family legacy into a business that creates lasting opportunity.

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For many people, coffee is part of a daily routine. For Geovanni Leiva, founder of Leiva's Coffee in Roland, Arkansas, it has always represented something much greater. Every cup tells a story, one rooted in family, sacrifice, and a commitment to creating opportunities for future generations. Geovanni is a third-generation coffee farmer from Guatemala, where coffee farming has been part of his family's life for decades. While many people romanticize coffee growing, his childhood revealed a much different reality. He watched hardworking farmers produce an exceptional crop year after year while remaining trapped in a system that gave them little control over pricing, profits, or their future. Despite the quality of their work, poverty remained a constant.

Determined to chart a different path, Geovanni earned a scholarship to study in the United States. His goal wasn't to build a coffee business, it was to leave the coffee industry behind entirely. He built a successful 14-year career as a computer programmer, believing technology offered the stability and opportunity that coffee farming never could.

But even as his professional life flourished, one question continued to follow him: What if the problem wasn't coffee itself, but the way the industry operated?

Rather than walking away from his roots, Geovanni began imagining how he could use everything he had learned—from business and technology to leadership and systems thinking—to build a better model for coffee producers.

"I left the coffee industry because I wanted to escape poverty. I came back because I realized I could help end it."

That realization became the foundation for Leiva's Coffee.

Starting with little more than determination and a vision, Geovanni launched the business from a laundry room before expanding into a 500-square-foot garage. Every stage of growth came with new challenges, but each milestone reinforced that the mission was worth pursuing. Today, Leiva's Coffee operates from a 5,000-square-foot roasting facility in Roland and employs approximately 15 people. Geovanni describes his employees as an extension of his family, reflecting a culture built on trust, shared purpose, and investing in people.

The company's business model is just as intentional as its culture.

Unlike traditional coffee companies that rely on multiple intermediaries between the farm and the consumer, Leiva's Coffee manages nearly every step of the process. The company grows coffee in Guatemala, oversees exporting and importing, roasts the beans in Arkansas, and serves customers directly. By maintaining personal relationships with the farmers who grow the coffee and remaining involved throughout the supply chain, Leiva's Coffee creates accountability, consistency, and exceptional quality from farm to cup.

That direct connection allows the company to deliver a premium product while ensuring more value stays with the people who make it possible. For Geovanni, quality isn't simply about producing great coffee, it's about honoring the work of every farmer behind it.

His commitment extends well beyond the coffee fields. One of the achievements Geovanni is most proud of is helping transform his childhood home and playground in Guatemala into a school that now serves approximately 100 children. Education has become a cornerstone of the company's mission because he believes lasting change comes from creating opportunities, not dependency. Inspired by the proverb about teaching someone to fish rather than simply giving them one, Geovanni sees every business decision as another opportunity to invest in the next generation.

"Our goal isn't just to grow coffee—it's to create opportunities that last for generations."

As Leiva's Coffee has continued to grow, Geovanni has recognized that passion alone isn't enough to scale a business. One of the company's greatest challenges has been marketing, communicating a deeply personal story in an industry crowded with technical terminology and countless brands competing for consumers' attention. Effective marketing requires consistency, strategy, and long-term investment, resources that can be difficult for growing businesses to dedicate while continuing to expand operations.

Looking ahead, Geovanni has set an ambitious goal of moving 600,000 pounds of coffee over the next 12 months, doubling the company's current volume. Achieving that kind of growth requires more than increasing production—it demands stronger systems, better processes, and a different style of leadership.

That's what led him to the Arkansas RAMP program.

Geovanni joined RAMP with the goal of transitioning from working in the business to leading the business. Through the program, he is developing the systems, strategic planning, and executive mindset necessary to support sustainable growth while remaining true to the mission that inspired Leiva's Coffee from the beginning.

"RAMP is helping me transition from thinking like a founder to leading like a CEO. That's what it takes to build something that can truly scale."

For Geovanni, success has never been measured solely by sales or production. Every pound of coffee roasted represents another opportunity to strengthen relationships with coffee-growing families, invest in education, and prove that businesses can create meaningful social impact while remaining financially successful.

Leiva's Coffee demonstrates that purpose and profitability are not competing priorities, they strengthen one another. By combining direct relationships with farmers, an unwavering commitment to quality, and a long-term investment in education, the company is building a business that creates value at every step of the journey.

As Leiva's Coffee continues to grow with support from RAMP, Geovanni remains focused on the vision that brought him back to coffee years ago: creating a future where exceptional coffee doesn't just taste good, it creates opportunity, empowers communities, and helps break the cycle of poverty for generations to come.