Linda Alvarado
President
Alvarado Construction
Linda Alvarado made the history books by becoming the first Hispanic woman involved in the ownership of the Major League Baseball team, the Colorado Rockies. Recognized as an outstanding businesswoman, Alvarado built her own 450-employee construction company and sits on several Fortune 500 company boards.

Aida Alvarez
Member, Board of Directors
Wal-Mart
Aida Alvarez was the first Hispanic woman to head the U.S. Small Business Administration and the first person of Puerto Rican descent to hold a Cabinet-level post when she served as a member of President Clinton’s administration from 1997 to 2001. A cum laude graduate of Harvard University and former award-winning journalist, she now serves on the board of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Carmen Baez
President, Diversified Agency Services
Omnicom Group
Carmen Baez oversees the development and growth of DAS operating companies in the regions of Central and South America, including worldwide leading agencies such as Rapp Collins, Fleishman-Hillard, Ketchum, Interbrand and Porter Novelli International. She also is responsible for all DAS multicultural marketing initiatives in the U.S. marketplace. Baez has more than 20 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. She joined Omnicom in 1986, and from 1988 to 1991 she served as president of Rapp Collins Worldwide in Boston, where she counseled clients in the fields of high technology, financial services, telecommunications, travel and entertainment. In 1993, Baez founded Baez-Zahorsky, Inc., a Boston-based marketing communications consulting company specializing in strategic planning and program development.

Anna Cabral
United States Treasurer
Anna Escobedo Cabral was nominated on July 22, 2004, by President Bush to serve as Treasurer of the United States. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on November 20, 2004. Previously, Cabral served as director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Latino Initiatives, where she led a pan-institutional effort to improve Latino representation in exhibits and public programming among the institution’s 19 museums. She also supervised five research centers and the National Zoo. From 1999 to 2003, Cabral served as president and CEO of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility (HACR), a non-profit organization that partners with Fortune 500 companies to increase Hispanic representation in employment, procurement, philanthropy and governance.

Jovita Carranza
Deputy Administrator
Small Business Administration
Jovita Carranza was sworn in December 15, 2006, as Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Carranza serves as second in command to Administrator Steven C. Preston. She helps to manage an agency with more than 80 field offices across the country and a portfolio of direct and guaranteed business loans, venture capital investments and disaster loans worth almost $80 billion. Carranza brings to the SBA more than 30 years of successful corporate experience at UPS. Through her work with the small business community throughout her career, she has a keen understanding of this vital sector of the U.S. economy. Carranza started at UPS in 1976 as a part-time, night-shift box handler in Los Angeles and worked her way up to vice president, managing domestic operations, and president of international operations for Latin America and the Caribbean. Most recently, she was vice president of air operations for the worldwide package-shipping company at its facility in Louisville, Kentucky.

Maria Contreras-Sweet
Founder and Chair
Promerica Bank
Maria Contreras-Sweet became the first Latina to hold a cabinet-level position in California under Gov. Gray Davis. As Secretary of Business, Transportation and Housing, she spearheaded the largest transportation augmentations in the state’s history ($6.8 billion), while overseeing the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the California Highway Patrol. As a community leader, Contreras-Sweet has used her power and influence to articulate the perspective of women and Latinos relative to a wide range of public policy. She founded HOPE, Hispanas Organized for Political Equality, and in November 2006 she founded Promerica Bank, where she currently serves as chair, to address the absence of Latino banks.

Sonia Dula
Manading Director, Latin America Investment Banking
Merrill Lynch
As managing director and head of Latin America Investment Banking, Sonia Dula is in charge of leading media and telecom investment banking efforts across the region. Dula was previously chief executive of Grupo Latino de Radio, leading the firm’s successful restructuring effort and expansion into the U.S. Hispanic market. In 2001, she lead the successful Starmedia.com acquisition of her Obsidiana.com an Internet portal for women, which she founded and chaired.

Dorene Dominguez
President, VANIR Group of Companies
Dominguez heads one of the nation’s leading construction and project management firms, which has completed more than $8.5 billion in real estate developments, design-build leases and construction services since 1990. Operating 16 offices in the U.S., Vanir employs a growing staff of 400 architects, engineers, construction managers, developers, contractors and staff. Dominguez is a former member of the Los Angeles Planning Commission and California State Board of Geology and Geophysics and currently holds leadership roles in several organizations such as New America Alliance, National Council of La Raza, Latin Business Association, Main Street, Inc., Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and HOPE, Hispanas Organized for Political Equality.

Jeanette Hernandez Prenger
Owner and Founder, ECCO Select
Jeanette Hernandez Prenger took a leap of faith and said goodbye to her position as an information technology manager to found ECCO Select in 1995. In that time, she has built her company into a thriving multi-million dollar consulting agency that has been certified as a minority-owned business through the MidAmerica Minority Business Development Council and the State of Missouri and has received a certification as an SDB/MBE/WBE for federal government contracts. Hernandez Prenger serves on the City of Kansas City Fairness in Contracts committee. She is a board member and former chair of the Greater Kansas City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and has served on the board of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce since 2004.

Miriam Lopez
Chairman and CEO
TransAtlantic Bank
Miriam Lopez is chairman and CEO of TransAtlantic Bank, a position she has held since 2003. Prior to that she was president and CEO. Since she joined the bank in 1985. She served as chair for the American Bankers Association Community Council from 1999 to 2000 and as president of the Florida Bankers Association from 2000 to 2001. Lopez serves on the board of trustees of Florida International University and Barry University in Miami.

Nancy Matta
First Vice President of Investments
Merrill Lynch
New York resident Nancy Matta heads a team responsible for managing more than $210 million in assets. She joined the brokerage firm in 1980 and currently helps manage money for individuals to small corporations and nonprofit groups. She sits on the firm’s diversity advisory board and was named as one of Research magazine’s top five advisors, earning her a place in its 2005 Financial Advisor Hall of Fame.

Patricia Menendez Cambo
Chair, International Practice Group
Greenberg-Traurig
Patricia Menendez Cambo is the chair of Greenberg Traurig’s Global Practice Group and serves on the firm’s executive committee. She has advised clients in connection with billions of dollars in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, securities and finance transactions throughout the United States, Latin America and Europe. This year, the National Law Journal named her one of its “100 Most Influential Lawyers.” In 2000, Menendez Cambo took a two-year leave of absence to work for Spanish telecommunications giant Telefonica S.A. as its U.S. legal counsel. She currently serves on the Board of the Council of the Americas and is a trustee for the National Alliance for Autism Research.

Regina Montoya
CEO
New America Alliance
Regina Montoya is the CEO of New America Alliance (NAA). Her responsibilities include developing strategic and tactical plans to fulfill the NAA’s mission of promoting the advancement of the Latino community with a focus on economic and political empowerment. Before working for the NAA, the Wellesley College and Harvard Law School graduate worked as educator, commentator, business consultant, chairperson and presidential aide.

Hilda Ochoa-Brillembourg
Founder, President and CEO
Strategic Investment Group
Born in Venezuela, Hilda Ochoa-Brillembourg founded Strategic Investment Group in 1987. Today, the company manages over $33 billion of global assets for institutional clients and affiliated specialty firms. Ochoa oversees the company’s annual and long-term investment, business and financial results and approves the execution of all strategic, financial and operating plans and policies. Ochoa also is founding chairman of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, a trustee of the National Symphony Orchestra and of the Washington National Opera and is a member of the advisory committee of the Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. In addition, she is vice chairman of the Group of Fifty (G-50) at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the investment and finance committees at the Rockefeller Family Fund. Ochoa also serves as a member of the board of directors of General Mills, Inc., the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., the World Bank/IMF Credit Union and the Harvard Management Company.

Ivelisse Rodriguez Simon
Vice-President
Palladium Equity Partners
Ivelisse Rodriguez Simon joined Palladium in 2007 as vice president. Previously, she was a vice president at Reliant Equity Investors, where she was involved in deal generation, investment structuring, portfolio management and investor relations. Before joining Reliant, Rodriguez Simon was vice president at Equest Partners. She began her career in mergers and acquisitions at Salomon Brothers and at Banc of America Securities (BAS) in mergers and acquisitions and merchant banking. Rodriguez Simon earned a B.S. in finance and accounting from the University of Illinois and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Josefa Sicard-Mirabal
ICC Director, Arbitration and ADR
International Court of Arbitration
In her current capacity, Josefa Sicard-Mirabal represents and promotes ICC dispute resolution services in the United States and Canada, and advises North American attorneys and companies on all phases of arbitration. Sicard-Mirabal began her legal career in the Dominican Republic, first as a judge in a small claims court and subsequently as chief justice of the Civil, Commercial and Labor Court. Since 1989, she has been in private practice in the United States, serving as Of Counsel in the New York office of Winston & Strawn and in the Miami office of Greenberg-Traurig, as well as an associate at the New York office of Thelen Reid and Priest. Sicard-Mirabal founded and chairs Dominicans on Wall Street, a non-profit organization created to serve as a liaison between Dominican companies seeking access to the U.S. and international capital markets and American companies wishing to invest in the Dominican Republic.

Nina Vaca
CEO,
Pinnacle
A native of Ecuador, Nina Vaca founded Pinnacle, an information technology services provider to Fortune 500 companies in 1996. Over the past three years she has grown the company 20-fold, employing 700 consultants across 32 states and two countries. Pinnacle is now among the fastest-growing firms in America. Vaca is the first two-time winner of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s prestigious Business Woman of the Year Award and was selected as one of the 50 Most Important Hispanics in business and technology by Hispanic Engineering and Technology, as well as one of the Top 25 Women Business Builders in the U.S. by Fast Company.

Livia Whisenhunt
President, CEO and Founder, PS Energy Group
Livia Whisenhunt has over 20 years experience in purchasing and marketing natural gas and fuels. Her company, PS Energy, was one of the first companies to market gas behind the Atlanta Gas Light system when deregulation to the city gate occurred. Under her leadership, PS Energy has won the Administrator’s Award for Excellence from the U.S. SBA for five years. Whisenhunt served on Georgia’s Competitive Natural Gas Service Study Committee, established to study and make recommendations to the legislature regarding the deregulation of the natural gas distribution in the state. She also has served as the Southeastern region chairperson to the Federal Regulatory Fairness Board (REGFAIR). She was later appointed and is currently the REGFAIR Region IV chairperson.

Elizabeth Gallagher
President and CEO, SAVI Construction
Succeeding in a male dominated industry with her own construction company, Elizabeth Gallagher is also very active in the Hispanic community. SAVI is currently helping to update the Cardiac Progressive Care Unit at Desert Springs Hospital, which with her help, is developing Southern Nevada’s first Latino Center of Medical Excellence. As a member of the Latin Chamber of Commerce board of directors and the regional director of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Gallagher, who was born in Mexico, has also served as an advocate for small business and for the Hispanic business community.

Aileen Ugalde
Vice President, General Counsel, University of Miami
Aileen M. Ugalde joined the University of Miami in 1994 as associate general counsel and became the executive director of the Presidential Search Committee in 2000. Ugalde was named assistant to the president in 2001 and vice president for government affairs in 2003. In 2006, she was appointed general counsel and secretary to the board of trustees. She received an A.B. in Latin American Studies and International Relations from Harvard University in 1988 and a J.D. in 1991 from the University of Miami. Ugalde is a member of the Cuban American Bar Association and the Florida Association of Women Lawyers. Prior to working at the University of Miami, she practiced commercial litigation with Akerman, Senterfitt & Eidson, P.A., specializing in employment discrimination cases.