Chiqui Cartagena is a Hispanic media pioneer with 25 years of experience developing, launching, and leading some of America’s most successful Spanish-language consumer magazines, including People en Español, and marketing programs like Club Música Latina for Columbia House. Ms. Cartagena also has over 10 years of experience as a journalist in broadcast media, having worked in the news divisions of both Univision and Telemundo networks in Miami and New York. 

Today, Ms. Cartagena is recognized as a thought leader in the media, marketing and business worlds for her ground-breaking work in the Hispanic market. She is regarded as a strategic thinker with deep Hispanic consumer insights and has worked with a wide variety of clients including Unilever, McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, Kraft, Kmart/Sears, MetLife and others developing culturally relevant marketing programs.

In April of 2007, the Direct Marketing Association named Chiqui the Hispanic Direct Marketing Professional of the Year in recognition of her many contributions in the Hispanic Market. Ms. Cartagena is the author of Latino Boom! Everything you need to know to grow your business in the US Hispanic market which is currently being used to teach Hispanic marketing at UCLA, Florida State University and Wharton Business School. She is currently working on her next book which will be published in 2010

Alberto Ferrer is Managing Partner, Director of Direct + Digital Marketing at The Vidal Partnership. Initially brought in to develop direct and digital marketing at the agency, he also created the Linguistic Services, Traffic Services, and Information Technology departments. Alberto also overhauled the Studio and the Print Production department. He now oversees each of these departments at TVP. In addition, Alberto is deeply involved in corporate strategy and development, leading projects that impact the agency overall.

An award-winning marketing communications veteran, he has dedicated his career to marketing disciplines that drive measurable business performance like direct and digital marketing. Alberto has experience in both the client and agency side of the business, in the general US, US Hispanic, and Latin America markets. He has worked in varied categories including telecommunications, financial services, packaged goods, automotive, technology, real estate, retail, and government.

Alberto has been recognized for his work with both the Hispanic Interactive Advertising Pioneer award by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in 2006 and Hispanic Media All Star for Digital in 2007 by Adweek’s Marketing y Medios magazine. Often quoted in the trade press, Alberto is an industry leader who is a member of the AAAA Digital Marketing Committee and the AHAA Digital Marketing Taskforce. He writes for Advertising Age’s blog The Big Tent as well as for other publications and his own blog.

Prior to joining The Vidal Partnership, Alberto held management positions at La Agencia de Orcí, Wunderman/Young & Rubicam, J. Walter Thompson, Leo Burnett, and AT&T. He holds an MBA with concentrations in marketing and organizational behavior from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, in addition to having completed graduate-level coursework in the Integrated Marketing Communications program at the university’s Medill School. He also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing from Bentley University.

Liliana Gil is the Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Managing Partner of Acento Group (AG).

A consummate young executive, thought leader and rising star, Liliana Gil has been recognized for her passion and leadership in support of diversity, women in business and her deep understanding of the dynamic and fast growing Multicultural and Hispanic markets in the U.S. Gil’s solid career with Johnson & Johnson as the Director of Worldwide Marketing Services has provided her with a platform to influence the marketplace in the creation of innovative strategic relationships with agencies, brands, media, the community and corporations alike. 

As a managing partner of Acento Group, Lili has recently taken a senior role to lead the creation and of a Marketing conglomerate called the XL Alliance. Joining other well known Marketing experts like Armando Martin, Enrique Arbelaez, Manny Fields, Mark Robinson and Monica Torres, the Alliance is a unique agency created “by former clients for clients.” It provides specialty services in retail-shopper marketing, healthcare and digital and new media. With a business model founded on principles of synergy and best-of-breed talent, the XL Alliance includes members such as Acento Group- experts in digital and new media, XL Edge for retail and XL Healthcare.  Clients include various Fortune 500 clients, retailers and organizations like the Latin Recording Academy, the Latin GRAMMY®s, MISSION Skincare, Serena Williams, among others-- which are launching non-traditional platforms to better reach the fastest growing market segment in the U.S: the Multicultural consumer.

Prior to her entrepreneurial accomplishments, her impressive track record includes the creation of “Proyecto MAS,” (J&J’s corporate wide Multicultural Marketing initiative) and the development of the corporation’s first Multicultural Strategy for the Pharmaceutical Group “MMX- Multicultural Marketing Excellence”. Brands that Gil has directly influenced include: Topamax, Levaquin, Tylenol, Lactaid, Splenda, Aveeno, Johnson’s Baby, among others. Gil has also collaborated with colleagues and powerful brands such as FOX Home Entertainment, Univision, Telemundo, among others.

Despite her professional success, it is Gil’s contributions to the community and the industry that provide her the greatest satisfaction. Her legacy lies in founding and supporting groups such as MAHO Designs (Makers of Hope) a foundation which helps artisans in vulnerable areas of Colombia; and HOLA, the Hispanic Organization for Leadership & Achievement, a mentoring and social responsibility arm of J&J now with over 1,500 members.

Gil is a recognized speaker, inspirational mentor to many and industry contributor who has been featured in countless publications, magazines and industry events. She has also contributed to diversity studies with the Harvard Business Review as part of a private sector task force entitled, "The Hidden Brain Drain: Women and Minorities as Unrealized Assets."

Prior to J&J, she held various positions at Huguley Healthcare Systems and Walt Disney World’s Celebration Health. An immigrant from Colombia, and bilingual, Lili holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Finance from Southwestern Adventist University. She has also completed foreign studies at Deakin University in Melbourne Australia, post-graduate studies at Rollins College (Crummer Graduate School of Business) and holds an MBA from the University of Colorado.

As Senior Vice President, Digital Sales for impreMedia, Liz Sarachek Blacker is responsible for building revenue streams across multiple platforms including; digital, mobile, print and video. She works with US advertisers and agencies seeking to reach Hispanic Consumers on and offline.  Since March 2008, Liz has built a National Digital Team while working closely with the National, Local and Classified print teams across impreMedia.  Under her leadership, impreMedia launched its first multi-platform marketing event including print, digital and mobile in the fall of 2008 to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.  This unprecedented platform included eight sponsors and was highlighted in Hispanicad.com among other industry vehicles. Under Liz’s tutelage over 150 new digital advertisers have run on impre.com and the impreMedia newspaper sites since their launch in April 2008.

Prior to impreMedia, Liz  ran her own company, LSB Global Communications, advising such clients as Johnson and Johnson's BabyCenter International on their US Hispanic and China launches and The Brookings Institution’s Urban Markets Initiative on Strategic Planning and Marketing. 

Before running her company, Liz held the post of Chief Marketing Officer for One Economy Corporation, a DC based multi-national non-profit.  She oversaw marketing, public relations, grassroots efforts, thirty plus web properties and led strategic alliances with companies in the fields of technology, media and consumer marketing including NBC Telemundo, The Allstate Foundation and The Pew Internet and American Life Project.  Under her tenure, One Economy won its first Webby Award for its bi-lingual Katrina Help Center and launched over a dozen Beehives (One Economy’s multi-lingual consumer web portal) in the US and commenced efforts to launch in Central America, Jordan and South Africa.  Her work included high-level projects with Co-chairs President Barack Obama and Senator John McCain in launching the Nation’s first Public Internet Channel.

Prior to joining the non-profit world, in early 2002, Liz joined Yahoo! as Executive Director of Sales, Latin America and shortly thereafter, launched Yahoo’s Hispanic sales efforts in the US, co-naming Yahoo! U.S. Hispanic and working with the content, marketing and sales teams at Yahoo! to develop this new platform.  She built a National Digital Team across the country and worked closely with the General Market Teams to incorporate them into the Hispanic buying process. Her efforts and those of her team led such clients as GM, Pepsi and Motorola to build their first Hispanic digital efforts across both English and Spanish Yahoo! sites.

Liz was named one of Advertising Age's 2004 "Women to Watch" where she was the only woman honored from the online space and the only recipient representing the multicultural advertising market. In 2006, she appeared on PBS’s “Nightly Business Report' and has been featured several times in “Capitol File Magazine” in their “Power Column” and Annual “Who’s Who List.” She has been a true media pioneer in the global marketing industry, the online space, as well as in the Hispanic and multicultural marketing worlds. 

In July 2009, Liz was asked to join the exclusive Advertising Women in New York (AWNY) Executive Committee.  She is a founding Board Member of The Internet Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Hispanic committee, as well as a Board Member of ad:tech US Hispanic/Latin America. She was Founder/President of the International Advertising Association’s (IAA) Under-30 Chapter, Secretary of the U.S. Chapter and on the Board of the Florida/Latin America Chapter.  She has been a frequent speaker and/or moderator at industry events including; ad:tech US Hispanic/Latin America Event, Adweek’s La Voz Latina Conference, The Hispanic DMA, IAA, New York Advertising Week, SRI and speaks annually at The University of Miami’s Center for Non Profit Management Program on Internet related topics.

She graduated from Muhlenberg College in 1991 with a BA in Communications after two years studying Film and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has a certificate in British Literature, Creative Writing and Political Science from Oxford University, Oxford, England.

She moved back to New York in June 2009 with her husband Andrew L. Blacker, SVP, Marketing, Screenvision and their two year old son Braden Storm Blacker.

Carlos Vassallo is the President and CEO of LatinVision Media. Carlos has extensive international business experience. He has worked for various multinational corporations, and has had major responsibilities for sales and operations for Latin America.

In addition, Carlos has business start-up experience and business consulting experience. He has worked for IBM, Elexco International, Proxima, and Abitibi Consolidated and has undertaken independent international assignments. He holds a B.S. from the University of Argentina and an M.B.A. from New York University.

Carlos lives in New York City and has two daughters Flavia and Lorenza. Carlos is a native of Argentina and is fluent in Spanish and English.