Hispana Leadership Summit 2011

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Every year, the Hispana Leadership Summit invites as speakers a group of women who are leaders in their respective fields. They exude confidence and motivation, and offer empowering advice through their stories of success.

2012 Speakers

Ilia Calderón

MODERATOR
Ilia Calderón
CO-ANCHOR, “NOTICIERO UNIVISION EDICIÓN NOCTURNA”

Ilia Calderón is co-anchor of "Noticiero Univision Edición Nocturna", a week day edition of Univision's late evening newscast; airing at 11:30 p.m. Before she got this promotion in 2011, she was co-anchor of Univision Network's daily news magazine show, "Primer Impacto" one of the highest-rated programs in the United States and in 12 Latin American countries. Prior to hosting the show, she served as co-anchor of the weekend edition, "Primer Impacto Fin de Semana".

Before joining Univision, Calderón was co-host of Telemundo Network's weekday morning program "Cada Día con María Antonieta Collins". Previously, she co-anchored Telemundo's weekend national newscast where she covered major national and international events, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan, the Iraq war, the capture of Saddam Hussein, and the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. Calderón was also news anchor for the international cable network Telemundo Internacional, and has interviewed numerous prominent politicians and celebrities, among them Secretary of State and former Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Colombian former president Álvaro Uribe Velez, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, and world-famous singers/songwriter Shakira and Juanes. Ilia also went inside a high security prison in Colombia to interview John Jairo Velásquez Vásquez, alias "Popeye", who was the closest man to Pablo Escobar, one of the "most wanted" criminals of all times. Ilia had the exclusive interview with the son of Pablo Escobar when he decided to ask for the forgiveness of the victims of his own father.

Adriana de Moura
ART DEALER
CAST MEMBER, REAL HOUSEWIVES OF MIAMI

Adriana is best known for her role on the cast of the hit Bravo TV show, The Real Housewives of Miami. As an Art Dealer, Adriana de Moura was exposed to art at a very young age by her grandmother, a painter. Mesmerized, the Brazil native studied French Art & Civilization at the Sorbonne University in Paris, as well as Italian Art in Florence, Italy. Adriana was made famous for being the Real Housewives of Miami cast's "Brazilian bombshell," and has been featured heavily in the press including a cover of New You Magazine, Ocean Drive, Star, The Miami Herald, Us Weekly, TV Guide, Life&Style, Ok! and more.

Alexia Echevarria
EXECUTIVE EDITOR, VENUE MAGAZINE
CAST MEMBER, REAL HOUSEWIVES OF MIAMI

Alexia Echevarría is the Executive Editor of Venue Magazine, a cast member of The Real Housewives of Miami, and an icon in the world of Miami fashion. She is well known for her trademark blond mane and large sunglasses and is seen on the front row of many fashion shows. She is also one of the cleverest influencers in fashion as she names trends and has a genuine passion for fostering young talent. Alexia, a Miami native, lived in Madrid where she went to high-school and college, earning a BA in Psychology and a Masters in Exceptional Student Education. There, she became involved in fashion, acquired a keen eye and honed her style.

Ana Quincoces Rodriguez
AUTHOR
CAST MEMBER, REAL HOUSEWIVES OF MIAMI

Voted Miami's "hottest chef" by Eater magazine in 2011, Ana Quincoces grew up in a Cuban household in sunny Miami, Florida, where she was her mother's apprentice in the kitchen and discovered her passion for the art of cooking. Like many young Cuban girls, Ana was given a well-known Cuban cookbook as a gift by her mother. While she cooked from the book regularly, she always found it difficult and not user friendly. As the time approached for Ana to teach her own daughters the way around a Cuban kitchen, she looked in vain to find an authentic Cuban cookbook that would appeal to a younger generation, so she decided to write it herself.

She self-published her first cookbook, "Cuban Chicks Can Cook", as both a tribute to her mother and a legacy for her daughters. The book quickly sold out in local bookstores. Ana was then contacted by a large publishing house and wrote her second cookbook, "Sabor! A Passion for Cuban Cuisine".

Ana now contributes to magazines and newspapers, and appears on national television in the US and abroad, on a regular basis. She was recently featured in Latina magazine, and has appeared in cooking segments for CNN en Español, Univision's "Despierta America", Telemundo's "Acceso Total" and Global Fox's Utilisima network. Ana is a contributing editor for Venue magazine, which is distributed in Hudson News airport stores nationwide and throughout the US and Latin America.

Dr. Colleen Ramos
STRENGTHSQUEST ADVISOR, GALLUP
ASSOCIATE DEAN, COLLEGE OF BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT AND KELLER GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT, DEVRY UNIVERSITY

Dr. Colleen Ramos serves as Associate Dean of the College of Business and Management and Keller Graduate School of Management at DeVry University. She also serves as a StrengthsQuest Advisor for the Gallup Corporation. She earned her doctorate from Barry University. Dr. Ramos is certified in the field of Emotional Intelligence, as well as Appreciative Inquiry.

She has worked as an administrator in the field of higher education for a many years. She focuses on helping students uncover their talent, developing their individual's strengths, maximizing their academic and professional careers, and building strengths-based organizations.

Dr. Ramos has launched campuses in Florida, Georgia, and Texas and reorganized schools in Oregon, Mississippi, and Tennessee. She has consulted with several nontraditional colleges throughout the United States that were redesigning their programs for nontraditional students. The key to her success has been positioning the organizational strengths of institutions leveraging performance excellence and facilitating the successful completion of their strategic goals. She has introduced the concept of strengths-based nontraditional programs in Oregon, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida.

Dr. Ramos works with business leaders and organizations that recognize the importance of engaging employees and unlocking human potential in order to differentiate strengths-based organizations creating a competitive advantage and increase market value.

Deborah Deras
ENGAGEMENT EXPERT.

Deborah Deras is a Engagement Expert who inspires audiences to be Energized, Optimize Productivity and Maximize their potential. Her dynamic presentations engage professionals, college students, employees and managers by delivering a clear, focused message. Goals are achieved by staying focused on a vision and not allowing distractions from unproductive people or messages. Via keynote speeches, interactive workshops and radical seminars, Deborah utilizes her unique skill set, abundant energy and engaging personality to help individuals and organizations solicit the best performance possible from themselves and their team members.

With more than a decade of experience, Deborah has been especially successful speaking to Latina groups and organizations, young students, and busy professionals. As the co-author of "Confessions of an Adrenaline Addict: How to Achieve More with Less Effort," and instructor at the University of Phoenix (on popular subjects such as Diversity, Communication Skills, Case/Time Management, and Theories of Human Development), she has shared her knowledge with thousands of professionals at all career levels.

Elizabeth Chalas Berman
PRESIDENT, CONTINENTAL FOOD AND BEVERAGE, INC.

Throughout her career, Elizabeth Chalas Berman has been recognized for her efforts as an entrepreneur, business woman and educator. Currently President of Continental Food and Beverage, Inc. (CF&B), the exclusive
bottler of Inca Kola brand for The Coca-Cola Company. Berman spearheaded the company's Community Outreach Department, which supports local, national and international organizations. Prior to joining CF&B, Elizabeth taught English as a Second Language for fifteen years in the Passaic City School system. During this time, she served on the Executive Board of the Passaic Education Association and served as her district's Chair of the New Jersey Education Association Annual Convention for 8 years.

Grace C. Lopez
PRESIDENT, SUSAN G. KOMEN FOR THE CURE - MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE AFFILIATE

Grace C. Lopez has been the Legal Administrator for the Miami office of the International law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP since April, 1998. Before that she was the Law Firm Administrator for a Litigation Firm, Pyszka, Douberley, Blackmon, Levy & Savola, P.A. Her experience consists of Legal Management, Governance, Human Resources, Accounting, Finance, Benefits, Pension Plan Administration, Compensation, Legal Recruiting, Purchasing, Diversity Training, Operations and Project Management. Grace is also an adjunct professor at the Florida International University in the Legal Studies Institute through the College of Law where she teaches a course on Law Firm Management.

Irma Elder
OWNER & CEO, ELDER FORD

Irma Elder refers to herself as a "truly multi-cultural person." Born in Xicotencatl, Mexico, she moved with her family to Florida as a teen, speaking only a few words of English. Later, while on vacation, she met James Elder and in 1963 they were married and moved to Michigan. They opened Troy Ford in April of 1967 with Mr. Elder running the business and Mrs. Elder at home raising their three children. In November 1983 James Elder died suddenly leaving his wife to take over the reigns of the business. She became a trailblazer of sorts, the first woman to own a Ford dealership in the greater Detroit area. Since that time, the dealership has undergone many changes, the most notable being its name change to Elder Ford in order to keep it more closely associated with the family name. Today, the Elder Automotive Group has grown to encompass 17 franchises including Aston Martin, Fisker, Ford, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mitsubishi, Saab and Spyker in the states of Michigan and Florida.

Ms. Elder has won numerous awards recognizing her amazing acheivements and continues to be recognized as one of the Top Hispanic Businesswomen in America year after year.

Ivette Mayo
CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER & PRESIDENT, YO SOY I AM, LLC

Ivette Mayo spent the majority of her career with a major global airline in marketing, sales, and corporate training. She worked successfully integrating culture and language as key components of the company's successful international expansion into Latin America. Her 26 years of experience and extensive travel background throughout the United States, Asia, Europe, Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean has provided a platform to guide her clients' success from the executive suite to the frontline with leading Fortune 500 companies. An award winning entrepreneur, Ivette launched her company, Yo Soy I Am, LLC to assist companies to embrace cultural change, discover new strategies that supplement their overall business strategy through coaching and leadership training. Ivette also has a passion for inspiring and encouraging others in pursuing their personal and career goals, and to develop the skills they need to achieve their success.

Ivonne Fernandez
ASSOCIATE STATE DIRECTOR, AARP FLORIDA

Ivonne Fernandez is originally from Colombia; she is a microbiologist and earned a Masters Degree in Marketing. She has 15 years of experience in developing Public Health programs in South America. This experience has allowed her to work as an Associate State Director for Multicultural Outreach for AARP Florida and to lead the efforts around lifting AARP awareness among diverse communities. Her role and expertise range from working on issues like healthcare reform and Social Security to community service projects, volunteerism and training community leaders to organize at the ground level around issues important to all.

Karent Sierra
DENTIST
CAST MEMBER, REAL HOUSEWIVES OF MIAMI

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" states the old adage or maybe beauty is the eye of Dr. Karent Sierra. Born in New York to Colombian parents, "Dentist to the stars", Dr. Sierra runs a cosmetic spa dentistry practice in the heart of Coral Gables. Just steps away from the luxurious Merrick Park Mall she aims each day to redefine cosmetic dentistry as we know it. Dr. Sierra provides a spa-like atmosphere which turns typically frightful dental experiences into soothing and relaxing visits. She firmly believes that creating "perfect" smiles for her patients changes their lives. She feels Cosmetic Dentistry is about giving people back their long lost confidence through creating beautiful new smiles by design. Dr. Sierra is one person who knows beauty.

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
PRESIDENT OF LOROMA SOLUTIONS, INC., SENIOR HUMAN RESOURCE LEADER

Loren Rosario-Maldonado, President of Loroma Solutions, Inc. is a Senior Human Resource Leader, with over 15 years of experience. Known as the "fixer", she is called upon by senior leadership executives to lead and execute major change initiatives within small to mid-sized organizations in various industries. Her track record reflects a strong expertise with multi-national, rapid-growth, environments, and HR Operation start up, restructuring and/or transformation. In addition, she served as the "go to person" for HR Due Diligence expertise within her role as Director of Human Resources for Seccion Amarilla USA.

Loren has made a career of making an impact, which includes the successful creation of two HR departments from the ground up within start up environments, one of which involved operations in Latin America (Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, etc.). Loren's life long commitment to service excellence, led to her appointment as an Officer of the Board for Seccion Amarilla USA, just one year after she joined the company in 2008.

Marie D. Quintero-Johnson
VP & DIRECTOR MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS, INSIGHTS, CORPORATE REAL ESTATE, THE COCA-COLA COMPANY

Marie D. Quintero-Johnson is Vice President and Director, Mergers & Acquisitions, Insights & Corporate Real Estate for The Coca-Cola Company. In her role she manages a team of 20 professionals responsible for evaluating and executing all merger, acquisition and divestiture transactions of the Corporation on a global level, as well as overseeing competitive Insights and Corporate Real Estate. She assumed her current position in March 2002 after spending three years as Executive Assistant to the Chief Financial Officer where she was an integral part of assisting the Company in implementing strategic opportunities.

Martha Montoya
PRESIDENT, LOS KITOS AND LOS KITOS PRODUCE
PUBLISHER, EL MUNDO

Martha Montoya is at the forefront of the dialogue regarding diversity contracting with corporate America, particularly in the media and agricultural industries. She leads several national initiatives to advance the position of Minority owned businesses. Through her work, Martha has forged relationships with Corporate, State and Federal leaders in United States and countries overseas to understand and bring to the table candid conversations to find solutions for the small and minority business advancement.

Martha owns and directs a unique media enterprise, Los Kitos Entertainment LLC, which has three main divisions. The core business is the syndication, of the inspirational Los Kitos bilingual cartoon strip to over 320 newspapers in the United States and overseas, including China. A second division is the licensing of the characters to several licensees ranging from bedding, shoes, baked cookies and many others and to assist those companies to expand their presence in the Hispanic market on retails across USA and the world. The third division of LKELLC is utilizing the characters to bring edu-entertainment to the U.S. Hispanic community through lifting edu-entertaining comic books for organizations such as: State Farm, NASA, Bank of America, Kraft, Wal-mart, Sodexho, SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers) Johnson & Johnson, IBM, to name a few.

Natalie Boden
PRESIDENT & FOUNDER, BODENPR

BodenPR is one of Miami's leading public relations agencies and one of the country's best U.S Hispanic and Latin America-focused boutique PR firms. Featured recently in Vanidades and Latina Magazine, Natalie Boden has led a highly qualified team of professionals in the areas of U.S Hispanic Thought Leadership, Strategic Planning, Media Relations and multi-lingual Social Media.

Prior to launching BodenPR, Ms. Boden led several multidisciplinary and multicultural campaigns at global firm Burson-Marsteller. As Account Leader for clients such as Club Med, DHL and Citibank, Ms. Boden was responsible for regional bilingual communications strategies in the U.S. and abroad, including public affairs, community relations and media relations. .

Pat Martinez
PRESIDENT & CEO, NATIONAL HISPANIC CORPORATE COUNCIL

Pat Martinez is the President and CEO of the National Hispanic Corporate Council (NHCC). The NHCC is a not- for-profit organization established in 1985 focused on the professional advancement of Hispanics in Corporate America. Pat brings extensive not-for-profit experience from her work in the corporate workforce and a broad range of significant leadership roles.

As the leader of NHCC, she provides vision and strategic direction for the organization in accordance with its established mission and goals, and serves as the principal spokesperson and advocate for the NHCC. Along with her primary duties, she works diligently to ensure the financial well-being of the organization, manages programming, and oversees the recruiting and retaining of NHCC members. By coupling her background in business, legal, and non-profit management with her expertise in developing strategic sponsorship alliances and social capital building skills, Pat has made tremendous strides towards making the NHCC the nation's premier organization recognized for its educational and workforce development programs.

Nicole Vazquez
SUSAN G. KOMEN FOR THE CURE
CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP MANAGER/ BREAST CANCER SURVIVOR

Nicole Vazquez joined Susan G. Komen for the Cure® in March of 2008 as a Corporate Sponsorship Manager. During her time with the organization she has managed up to 15 partners simultaneously with a total budget of more $5 million and assists corporate partners with the development of their marketing strategies for cause-related marketing programs and on-event activation for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® Series.

Peggy Rios, Ph.D.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR, CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY GREATER MIAMI

Peggy Rios received her doctoral degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Maryland in 1995. She further complemented her training with a post-doctoral appointment at the University of Houston where she focused on intercultural and cross cultural aspects of health. In 1996, she joined the University of Miami as a full-time faculty member. After five years studying and teaching about cultural influences on mental health and developing a private practice serving critically ill patients, Dr. Rios transitioned to The Wellness Community -- Greater Miami, where she is the program director. The Wellness Community is now known as the Cancer Support Community Greater Miami.

Pegine Echevarria
MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER, CEO, TEAM PEGINE, INC.

Pegine (Peg-een) is CEO of Team Pegine, Inc., (www.TeamPegine.com) a think tank, training and consulting firm focusing on utilizing leadership, diversity and inclusion to manifest success within the military, federal government, defense, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and manufacturing focused organizations. Her team works with the US Army, US Navy, US Marines, US Air Force, National Guard Bureau and 35 National Guard States. Clients include Rockwell Collins, Northrup Grumman, HSBC Bank and Booz Allen Hamilton. Capt Ken Barrett - Under Secretary of Defense's Deputy Director, Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity in Washington, DC recommended Team Pegine Inc. at the Pentagon to DoD agencies, touting their approach to diversity and inclusion. "It's not just about race and ethnicity," said Barrett. "You can look at language skills, regional expertise, and cultural expertise - everything that puts us at a readiness standpoint to accomplish our missions. Team Pegine Inc. contributes to mission success."
Pegine is the one of 58 inductees into the Motivational Speakers Hall of Fame (given by www.GetMotivation.com), (the only Latina and one of 8 females) and she is also one of 700 Certified Speaking Professional worldwide. The CSP is awarded to professional speakers after undergoing a rigorous independent audit of their business for expertise, eloquence, enterprise and ethics. The audit evaluated five years of documented business practices including ethics, customer service, client ROI, financial review, and marketing. New York Newsday calls business woman Pegine (Peg-een), "a walking one-woman antidote to workplace cynicism."

Past Speakers