Court Stroud serves as Visiting Assistant Professor of Business – Entertainment Marketing at Marymount Manhattan College. He also teaches as an adjunct at the NYU SPS Integrated Marketing & Communication MSc. program, Columbia, and his alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. 

Previously, he worked at Univision, Telemundo, Azteca, CBS Interactive, and several startups. The Texas native is the founder of boutique consulting and training company The Cledor Group, which counts among its past clients NBCUniversal, Sony, and the BBC.

Ronald Méndez is a seasoned leader in the multicultural marketing space, currently serving as EVP, Cultural Investment & Strategy Lead at WPP Media (formerly GroupM). With a career spanning over 25 years, Ronald has been at the forefront of shaping multicultural marketing strategies that resonate with New Majority audiences. His journey began at Conill Advertising, marking the start of a distinguished career dedicated to understanding and leveraging the cultural nuances that drive consumer behaviour.

In 2015, Ronald took on the role of Managing Partner, Multicultural Lead at MediaCom, a fundamental position within the WPP family. Here, he was instrumental in ensuring that clients grasped the significant impact of New Majority audiences on their business, both presently and in the future. His efforts were not only about representation but also about driving meaningful engagement across diverse audiences.

Ronald’s expertise and visionary leadership led to his promotion in 2023 to EVP, Cultural Investment & Strategy Lead. In this role, he is charged with a critical mission: to establish and steer the agencies toward a responsible media investment approach. This involves setting clear benchmarks based on client opportunities and empowering the planning and investment leadership to meet and exceed these commitments and goals. His work is pivotal in aligning investment strategies with cultural insights, thereby enhancing the agency’s impact on client success.

Before his tenure at WPP Media and MediaCom, Ronald was part of the founding team at 42 Degrees at Mediavest, where he dedicated over 13 years. He also led the multicultural practice at MPG and ventured into sales as multicultural business development at Starlite Media. Each role has underscored Ronald’s deep commitment to advancing multicultural understanding and representation in the media landscape.

Ronald Méndez’s career is a testament to his unwavering dedication to cultural investment and strategy. His leadership not only guides his teams and clients towards embracing diversity but also sets a benchmark in the industry for responsible and impactful media investment.

Adam Lee has over 16 years of experience in advertising, digital marketing, and publishing, with a strong focus on multicultural and inclusive marketing strategies. Adam joined AdCellerant eight years ago to lead, build, and manage Techint Labs, a solution designed to support AdCellerant’s largest and most sophisticated partnerships. Throughout his career, Adam has helped brands and agencies connect with diverse audiences through culturally relevant, conversion-focused media, advanced analytics, and emerging advertising technologies that drive measurable, attributable results.

Before joining AdCellerant, Adam helped oversee Digital First Media’s Higher Education, Political, and Travel & Tourism advertising strategy, with an emphasis on audience segmentation and community-based outreach. He also managed The Denver Post’s retail advertising division for seven years, partnering with local and regional brands to expand their reach across Colorado communities.

Adam currently sits on the IAB Terms & Conditions Task Force and is an active member of the Hispanic Marketing Council, the Colorado Hospital Association, and the Colorado Bankers Association.

Adam lives in Boulder, CO, and is the father of two energetic sons (7 and 9) and husband to the wonderful and patient Dr. Samantha Lee. On any given weekend, you can find the Lee family enjoying all that Colorado has to offer.

Lili is a former corporate executive turned entrepreneur, Cultural Intelligence® expert, and television business commentator. An immigrant from Colombia, she came to the U.S. at 17 without speaking English with a suitcase and an American Dream. After a decade at Johnson & Johnson, where she pioneered multicultural marketing in the pharmaceutical sector and founded the Hispanic ERG HOLA, she co-founded Culture+ Group, an independent network of Cultural Intelligence® Companies helping brands grow with data, strategies and marketing to tap into high growth markets. She is on a mission to turn cultural trends into impact and profi ts across board rooms.

Culture+ Group specializes in business transformation, inclusive marketing, and AI-driven insights through its ecosystem of companies, including CIEN+, CIEN+Health, Human Dot Plus, and The Choice+. It has been listed three times by Inc. 5000 as one of America’s Fastest Growing Privately Owned Companies.

Lili is among the fewer than 2% of Latinas serving on a Fortune 500+ public board, as an independent director at the global lifestyle retailer Zumiez (NASDAQ: ZUMZ) and RCN Television (BVC: RCNTELEVI). She is also former Chair and now board member of the FRIENDS of the National American Latino Museum and is an investor and value creation partner at AUA Private Equity Partners.

Recognized for her impact, Lili has been featured by Inc., Forbes, Bloomberg, and Fortune and honored with awards including Inc. Magazine’s Top 500 Female Founders (2025), Top 101 Most Infl uential Latinos (2024), ALPFA’s 50 Most Powerful Latinas (2023), PRWeek’s Top 30 in Healthcare (2022), and U.S. Hispanic Businessperson of the Year, among others.She is also a philanthropist with Hispanic/ Latino focused scholarships at the Latin GRAMMY Foundation and Southwestern Adventist University.

She holds degrees from Southwestern Adventist University, the University of Colorado, and Harvard Kennedy School, where she served on the Women’s Leadership Board.

As president of WPP Media (formerly GroupM Multicultural), Gonzalo Del Fa plays a key role in all aspects of multicultural marketing, diverse media, and inclusive investment efforts across WPP Media. In his role, he provides clients across WPP Media’s Mindshare, Wavemaker, and EssenceMediacom agencies with dynamic guidance and strategic programs to support endemic and diverse-owned media.

He’s been recognized as one of the most influential Latinos in New York by El Diario (2018), named one of the 20 Most Influential Latinos in Marketing and Media (2022), and recognized as an Icon by the Ad Club of NY (2023). Over the past decade, he has also been nominated for or been the recipient of numerous accolades including Media Maven of the Year (2014), Crain’s Visionary Award (2016 nominee), Executive Leadership Award (2017), and AdWeek Stellar Marketing Execs of the Year Awards (2019).

Del Fa first joined the WPP family in 2003 as managing director of MEC Argentina. In addition to his role at WPP Media, he is the past-chairman of the Hispanic Marketing Council. Prior to joining WPP Media, Del Fa worked at American Express Argentina, BBVA, Hachette Filipacchi, and Editorial Televisa.

Tony Gonzalez has 15 years of experience leading technology companies from formation to exit. He is currently CEO and Co-Founder of Mundial Media, a contextual marketing automation platform focused on multicultural audiences in the U.S. Mundial Media is an NMSDC-certified minority-owned and operated business with offices in Santa Monica, California, and Palo Alto, California.

Previously, he was the Founding President at H Code Media, Inc. (AKA My Code Media). He led strategic initiatives to scale revenues and achieve profitability through technology enablement, endemic market know-how, and financial engineering. The company took a significant investment in August 2021 by a lower middle-market private equity firm. He led the sell-side process along with Canaccord Genuity and Cooley LLP.

Prior to H Code Media, he was Head of Corporate Development at Tremor International (NASDAQ: TRMR), a publicly listed online advertising company based in San Francisco, California. He led growth initiatives, including acquisitions, investments, and joint ventures, and oversaw three acquisitions and one divestiture.

He joined Tremor International through the acquisition of Lyfe Mobile, a mobile demand-side platform (DSP), where he held the position of Co-Founder and CEO. He led the sale of the company to Tremor, which represented a 20x MOIC to shareholders.

Before founding Lyfe Mobile, he was Director of Mergers and Acquisitions at Leaf Group (NYSE: LEAF). He worked directly for the Company’s Co-Founder and Head of M&A in a corporate development role to execute strategic acquisitions and investments.

Previous to Leaf Group, he was a Family Office Private Equity Associate, where he supported a former PriceGrabber executive in evaluating venture capital and private equity investments in the digital media and marketing automation space.

Tony also co-led Strategic Planning and Corporate Development efforts at PriceGrabber.com, which was acquired by Experian (LSE: EXPN). PriceGrabber was sold to Experian Interactive for $485M in an all-cash transaction (20x EBITDA).

He was also an investment banker at UBS Investment Bank and Goldman Sachs. He holds an A.B. in Politics from Princeton University. He has also completed executive education courses at Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

In his current role, Stephen Paez oversees cultural investment and innovation for Publicis Media Exchange (PMX), helping to guide Publicis Media’s agencies in strategic investment, partnerships and innovative solutions that connect brands with multicultural audiences, drive diverse investment growth and foster greater accountability. He is also a key contributor to Publicis Media’s multicultural arm, Cultural Quotient – the largest cultural digital investor in the U.S.

With over two decades of experience in marketing, Paez continues to be a driving force in shaping the future of advertising and media. While at Publicis Media, he has developed a robust go to market strategy that delivers across the diverse media ecosystem and has secured YOY growth within diverse media. His visionary approach, coupled with his profound insights into the nuances of diverse audiences, has enabled him to navigate the intricate web of multicultural advertising, cementing his reputation as a trailblazer in the industry.

Paez also led the framework, development, and execution for multicultural strategy across all clients at Publicis Media agency Spark Foundry, which included KFC, Mondelēz, Taco Bell and Molson Coors, to name a few. Prior to Spark, Paez was at OMD where he launched the Latino offering for the Central region. He has also held roles at MGS Communications and mun2.
Paez received his bachelor’s degree from Florida International University.

Cara Lewis is Executive Vice President and U.S. Head of Agency Sales at TelevisaUnivision, the world’s leading Spanish-language media company. In this role, she leads the agency sales and strategic partnerships team, driving forward momentum and innovative solutions that enable advertisers to effectively connect with the U.S. Hispanic audience through impactful video advertising.

Prior to joining TelevisaUnivision, Lewis served as Chief Investment and Activation Officer for dentsu’s media service line, where she led the transformation to break silos behind all media channels including video, radio, OOH, print, digital and programmatic, paid social, search, and retail media. She also oversaw disciplines across brand assurance, economic empowerment, productivity, sports, research and insights, and business transformation and strategy. She rose through the ranks at dentsu since 2010 and managed $22B in annual investments for all dentsu’s media clients in the US market, overseeing all U.S. investment activities including publisher direct media, biddable media, research, economic empowerment, productivity and strategic partnerships. Lewis was tasked with maximizing efficiencies for her clients by leveraging the collective buying power of dentsu and delivering innovative solutions that address the changes in the media landscape.

Her media career spans 25+ years, with five years of direct-to-consumer experience between two of the biggest pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer and Glaxo SmithKline), as well as a strong background in packaged goods, retail and auto, working on the SC Johnson, Sears and General Motors business for over 16 years, in addition to a handful of travel accounts. Her past agency experience includes MediaEdge, TN, Initiative, MPG and dentsu.

Lewis has been recognized with numerous accolades throughout her career. In January 2026, she will receive Givsly’s 2026 Impact Achievement Award. In 2025, she was awarded with the She Runs It Game Changer Award for No Apologies and in 2024, she was celebrated as a Young Audiences of New York honoree. Her achievements in 2023 included being named a Campaign U.S. Inspiring Women and Women in Media & Marketing honoree. In 2022, she was honored at the Partnership with Children Gala. Her 2020 recognitions included Cynopsis’ Top Women in Media: Industry Leader and She Runs It Working Mother of the Year. In 2019, she was celebrated at The Valerie Fund Thanksgiving Gala for her contributions to the cause. Earlier in her career, she was an honoree at Coaches vs. Cancer, and she also received a 5th Dot Award at her previous agency.

In this role, Carla leads the Client Advocacy Team, playing an integral part in the development of NBCUniversal’s inclusive sales strategy. She works with clients and agency partners to help leverage the power of inclusive audiences as a growth engine for the future.

Prior to joining NBCUniversal, Carla spent over 25 years in consumer marketing and strategy, where she helped deliver profitable growth for global consumer product businesses. Carla worked at Colgate Palmolive, Nabisco Foods, Nestle Foods, and Andersen Consulting.

Carla is an active participant in NBCUniversal’s and the larger industry’s focus on elevating and cultivating an inclusive advertising ecosystem. She works with industry partners to drive thought leadership initiatives and elevate advertisers focus and investment in inclusive growth initiatives.

Carla received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and her MBA from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

Luis Miguel Messianu has played a respectable and influential role in the most important developments in the U.S. multicultural market during an advertising career that spans over three decades. Born to Romanian parents and raised in Mexico City, he has worked in both the Latin American and U.S. Hispanic markets. His professional trajectory is defined by a conscious effort to help pioneer the melding of marketing niches into a nuanced and evolving market. His award-winning work for multinationals such as McDonald’s, State Farm Insurance, Clorox, MolsonCoors, Sprint, Pepsi, among others, is a testament to that effort. Luis Miguel Messianu is an innovator, a mentor, and an example followed by many distinguished professionals in the multicultural marketing community.

Luis Miguel had the foresight to target this vast and untapped market. In 1994 he started his own Hispanic agency, winning soon after the McDonald’s and State Farm Insurance accounts. Twenty nine years and numerous award-winning campaigns later, both clients still trusted their multicultural strategy to Luis Miguel’s previous creative shop, called alma. alma is a modern culture marketing agency known for highly effective, award-winning segment-led creative campaigns, with a broad roster of clients, including McDonald’s, MolsonCoors, PepsiCo, Wells Fargo, CVS Health, Google, State Farm and others. Under his watch the agency fueled exceptional business growth through creativity, earning 37 Cannes Lions and 30 Effie Awards, as well as numerous Radio Mercury, One Show, Clio, ANA, and New York Festival Awards. alma was named to Ad Age’s prestigious A-List seven times and earned “Agency of the Year ” titles from El Ojo, El Sol, and FIAP.

In 2015, ADCOLOR named Luis Miguel Legend Honoree in celebration of his achievements in diversity through his career, and in 2016 he was selected as juror for the Radio Category at the Cannes Lions Advertising festival, he was invited back in 2022 as a juror for the Sustainable Development Goals category. In 2019 he was inducted into the CMC Advertising Hall of Fame, one of the highest recognitions in the multicultural industry.

He has always been passionate about mentoring and educating a new generation of Multicultural advertising professionals, and has been a member of the Miami Ad School Board and faculty since the school’s inception. He is a professor at the School of Communications at the University of Miami. Luis Miguel was also one of the founders of the US Hispanic Creative Circle more than two decades ago, was elected its first President.

He completed with honors his Executive MBA at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.

From February 2022 to July 2023, he was DDB’s Global Chief Creative Officer for the McDonald’s account. Messianu oversaw the creative output of the McDonald’s brand across 46 markets, where the DDB network is responsible for the account. He split his time between his role as Founder and Chairman of alma and the global position within DDB for McDonald’s.

In  June 2023 he left DDB and alma, the agency he founded,and launched a Multicultural Creative Content Consultancy under the name “Included” going back full circle as a creative entrepreneur who really loves to build cultures and companies from scratch. Soon after he engaged in conversations with Pete Lerma and Richard Edelman, who wanted to partner with him, which in turn are now giving birth to MEL. MEL is a leading culture-forward integrated creative agency committed to going beyond conventions to elevate the connection between people and brands. MEL specializes in developing communication for diverse communities that comprise modern culture., and scales capabilities to build bespoke solutions for clients to help them unlock brand and business growth. The agency has a presence in Miami, New York and Dallas. Their clients include P&G, NFL, Remy Martin, Aaron’s Furniture, Brandsmart and Centenario Tequila from Proximo Spirits. This new enterprise is allowing him to recommit to his personal and professional mission of helping dignify and elevate the presence of Latinos in the U.S.

Dr. José Jurado Vadillo is a Senior Research Economist at the Seidman Research Institute. An experienced college instructor, Dr. Jurado originally joined Seidman as a Research Economist in February 2023, moving from Carnegie Mellon University, where he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow.

Dr. Jurado has organized and participated in large research projects that quantified the far-reaching economic costs posed by drug-trafficking organizations and drug violence. He has also investigated the role that race plays in the decision to escalate the use of force by U.S. law enforcement.

Previously, Dr. Jurado worked as an economist at Banco de México’s research division. He supported the monetary forecasting capabilities of the Central Bank, and assisted in relevant policy research.

Projects Dr. Jurado has participated in include the role of credit in the economic growth of the country, the contribution of federal subsidies to home ownership, and the drivers of money growth, among others.

He is passionate about U.S.-Mexico bilateral security issues, racial disparities in policing in the U.S., and the links between economic conditions in the U.S. and remittances from Mexican migrant workers.

Dr. Jurado earned a Ph.D. in economics from Brown University in 2021.

He has been awarded first place in the 2022 edition of the Victor L. Urquidi prize in economics for best research paper focused on Mexico.