Sandra Rivera
Maria Eduarda Kertez
President, U.S. Healthe
Johnson & Johnson
Maria Eduarda Kertesz (known as Duda Kertesz), is the President of U.S. HealthE for Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products, responsible for the Oral Care, Wound Care and Baby care businesses, totaling more than $1.5 billion. With more than 19 years of experience at Johnson & Johnson, Kertesz has worked across a range of different consumer brands – in Baby, Beauty, Sanitary Protection, Oral Care, Wound Care and OTC (over the counter medicines), with extensive experience in both local general management as well as global franchise roles. She has led a broad range of business situations such as turn-arounds, startups, acquisitions and divestitures. Previously, in her role as Managing Director, Johnson & Johnson Consumer for Brazil, she led an organization-wide transformation to accelerate growth and competitiveness. This resulted in achieving 80 percent growth in sales in 2010 resulting in $1 billion in incremental net sales. She has received multiple awards including top 10 women in business in Brazil twice and one of the 15 most powerful women in Brazil by Forbes magazine in 2015. Most recently, she received the 2017 Luminary Award by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association.
Melissa Bolden
Assistant Vice President
Program Management, Merger
Integration
AT&T
Melissa Bolden is currently an Assistant Vice President on the Entertainment Group Operations Support team at AT&T. She is responsible for leading the program office and ensuring seamless integration related to the DIRECTV merger. Bolden is a CPA and has had various roles in corporate accounting, corporate finance and IT throughout her career. Most recently, she led a $1 billion transformation program that integrated the technology and business systems of DIRECTV and AT&T. This was a highly technical project that crossed dozens of applications and impacted over 165,000 people who serve AT&T customers. In 2016, she was recognized as one of AT&T’s Champions of Diversity. Additionally, she received a national award from the Women of Color in STEM. Bolden is active with AT&T’s ERG HACEMOS, acting as a member of the scholarship committee, a mentor and an executive sponsor to HACEMOS’s initiative of empowering Latina women’s development. This year with Bolden’s support and leadership, HACEMOS was able to double their scholarship proceeds to $45,000. She was recently recognized as Role Model of the Year by HACEMOS.
Claudia Marquez
Senior Director, Sales Operations
INIFINITY Americas
Claudia Marquez is Senior Director of Sales Operations for INFINITI Motor Company, Ltd. In this role, she provides strategic direction for the INFINITI vehicle portfolio for pricing and in-market competitiveness for the United States, Canada and Mexico. Additionally, she leads month to month sales and business planning activities as well as customer experience initiatives. Marquez has over two decades of experience in the automotive industry with a wide range of responsibilities in sales, marketing, aftersales, dealer development, and strategic planning. Before joining INFINITI, Marquez worked for Nissan as Marketing Director for Mexico and Latin America, and before that at the BMW Group in Mexico and the U.K. For more than two years as Senior Director, INFINITI has grown in market share and sales, and is expected to end 2017 with its best result in 27 years with an increase in sales by 15 percent through October. Marquez is an automotive operational expert that brings an impactful leadership style that has driven results and built stronger, more motivated teams.
Olga Gonzales Aponte
Senior Vice President and Chief
Financial Officer
Walmart of Mexico and Central
America
Olga Gonzalez Aponte is Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Walmart of Mexico and Central America (Walmex). Since June 2017 she has been responsible for all areas of Finance, Comptroller, Systems, Investor Relations, Financial Services, Treasury, Financial Planning & Analysis and Commercial & Operational Finance teams that provide services to + 3,000 stores and over 30 billion dollars in sales in six countries. In 2010, Aponte started her career at Walmart, Inc. as the internal audit lead for Latin America. She was later promoted to Chief Financial Officer of Walmart Chile and then Vice President of Commercial and Operations Finance for Walmex. Aponte is a member of the Global President’s Inclusion Council at Walmart, Inc. At Walmex, she served as President of the Council in 2015-2016. During her tenure, the council established several diversity programs focused on education, experience and helped in achieve the highest percentage of women leaders in the organization. Before joining Walmart, Gonzalez held leadership positions as Director of Audit Services for Latin America, Africa and the Middle East for General Motors and Vice President of Corporate Risks and Services of Assurance for American Express.
Sigal Cordeiro
Global Product Marketing
Executive Director.
General Motora
Sigal Cordeiro is the Global Product Marketing Executive Director for General Motors’ Growth Market Vehicles. In this role, she works to ensure that future cars and SUVs for countries like Brazil and China exceed customer expectations, deliver on the brand promise, and align with the company’s business priorities. Cordeiro joined General Motors in 2000 and since then has held numerous positions in Marketing, Product Research, and Brand Research in the U.S. and Germany. Her most recent experience was as General Director for Chevrolet Global Marketing, where she led the globalization efforts of the Chevrolet brand around the world. As the highest-ranking Latina at General Motors, Cordeiro has played a critical role in re-launching the Hispanic employee resource group for the company and is an active member of the Leadership Advisory Board for the GM Latino Network, providing strategic guidance and support. She also acts as co-chair of the GM Women’s Sales & Marketing Committee. Her past experiences include Director of Consumer Insights at NBCUniversal and various marketing capacities at TAM Brazilian Airlines.
Tony Gutierrez
Country Director of Mexico
American Airlines
Tony Gutierrez is the Country Director of Mexico for American Airlines where she oversees operations of more than 600 weekly flights to 21 destinations. With 43 years of experience at American Airlines she is the first Mexican woman to lead an international airline. Gutierrez is recognized for her contribution to the expansion and growth that American Airlines has experienced in Mexico. This year, she also received the highest honor given by the Metropolitan Association of Travel Agencies, “La Presea Metropolitana 2017” award for her contribution to the development and growth of the travel and tourism industry in Mexico. Most recently, Gutierrez helped launch and became president of the first Mexico City Chapter of the employee resource group, Latin Diversity Network of American Airlines. The organization is committed to several volunteer projects, one which includes spearheading a $75,000 USD donation to build a state-of-the-art playground for a pediatric hospital dedicated to children’s cancer treatments.
Olga L.Lopez
Region bank President
Wells Fargo Bank
Olga Lopez is the Region Bank President for Wells Fargo’s North Texas Upper Brazos Valley Region, responsible for more than 700 team members and 60 bank stores across Texas. She has over 27 years of banking experience, encompassing sales and leadership positions with Dayton State Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Wachovia and Wells Fargo. She has been with Wells Fargo for the past 10 years and has served as branch manager, lender, sales and service coach, small business manager, retail sales leader, district manager and area president, she took her current position in 2017. For the past years she has served as the co-chair for Wells Fargo employee resource group Latin Connection, Team Member Outcomes at the Enterprise level. While in Georgia, Lopez helped launched and chairs the first Diversity and Inclusion Council for the Greater Georgia Region and was instrumental in forming the first Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Savannah, GA.
Eliana Murillo
Head of Multicultural Marketing
Google
Eliana Murillo joined Google in 2010 and serves as Head of Multicultural Marketing, leading the development of the cultural competitive strategy for the entire company. In her time with Google, she has founded its first multicultural marketing team with a cross-product strategy focused on diverse users and business owners. Murillo also co-founded Google’s employee and business resource group Hispanic Opportunities in Leadership and Advocacy (HOLA) with a presence in more than 20 offices worldwide. Outside of her work at Google, Murillo is the Chief Marketing Officer of her family’s award-winning organic tequila company, Tequila Alquimia. She is also an advisor and co-founder of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation’s Code as a Second Language program. Together they created the Ignite Youth Digital Marketing Fellowship to increase Latino/a youth’s interest and experience in digital marketing and to support Hispanic small businesses. Murillo also serves as co-chair of the Hispanic/Latino Advisory Council at Nielsen.
Evanghela Hidalgo
Global Business Development and
General Manager International
Masco Coatings Group (BEHR)
Evanghela Hidalgo is the Global Business Development and General Manager International at Masco Coatings Group (BEHR). Hidalgo has over 20 years of experience, including 15 years as General Manager for multinational companies in the U.S., Canada, China and Latin America. Hidalgo is responsible for sales, marketing, finance, supply chain and human resources, and the overall direction and performance of the international business, as well as MCG’s growth acceleration via mergers and acquisitions. She currently leads a team of 600 people and under Hidalgo’s leadership, the international business at Masco Coatings has grown from 1 million dollars to 60 million dollars in five years. Prior to MCG, she worked for Applica Consumer Products and Black & Decker in several leadership roles, including President and General Manager Americas Division with the responsibility to lead a $700 million dollar business in 23 countries. Hidalgo’s passion for diversity and inclusion lead her to establish the first Women Leadership Forum at MCG and there after became executive sponsor for L.E.A.D, a forum to provide opportunities to learn about leadership, engagement, advancement and development.
Want to comment or have any questions on this article? Email us at [email protected]
