HispanicBusiness

Alex Soto
President
The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America
With roots dating back to the earliest permanent Spanish settlement on Cuba, Mr. Soto's family has been wielding influence in the New World for half a millenium. In addition to his leadership of the 300,000-member Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, Mr. Soto is president of his own insurance firm, Miami-based InSource, where he specializes in serving law firms and other professional organizations. A 1971 Florida State University graduate, he is also a trustee of the Archdiocese of Miami Trust and chairs the City of Coral Gables Cable Television Board.

Carlina Tapia-Ruano
President
American Immigration Lawyers Association
Ms. Tapia-Ruano, who founded the Chicago firm Tapia-Ruano & Gunn PC, has been concentrating on immigration law for more than two decades, and in June became the first Hispanic president of the almost 10,000-strong American Immigration Lawyers Association. A naturalized citizen from Cuba, Ms. Tapia-Ruano teaches immigration law at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, the latter her alma mater for her law degree. In 2005 she received an honorary Doctorate of Law degree from Illinois Wesleyan University, where she had earned a bachelor's 28 years before.

Cynthia Ann Telles
Board of Directors
The California Endowment
Dr. Telles, director of the Spanish-Speaking Psychosocial Clinic of the Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital at the UCLA School of Medicine for the past two decades, just ended her two-year term as chair of The California Endowment – a 10-year-old private, statewide health foundation -- in April. She has held numerous appointed positions, ranging from being a commissioner for the city of Los Angeles to the National Advisory Council of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Dr. Telles, a graduate of Boston University and Smith College, was president and founder of the Hispanic Health Foundation from 1988 to 1998.

Marisa Ugarte
Executive Director
Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition
Ms. Ugarte has spent decades advocating for the safety of those who might be exploited sexually or otherwise, whether convening an annual anti-trafficking conference in San Diego, teaching crisis intervention at universities in San Diego and Xochicalco, Mexico, or as the leader of the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition. An alumnus of the San Francisco College for Women/USD and Dunbarton College of Holy Cross in Washington, D.C., she founded and ran social services programs in Tijuana and still advises the Mexican government on civil protection and crisis prevention.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Renan Almendarez Coello
Radio Host
"El Cucuy de la Manana"
Spanish-language radio personality Renan Almendarez Coello -- known to Spanish-speaking listeners as "El Cucuy de la Manana," or the "morning bogeyman" -- launched an ambitious 10-city effort to register one million new voters before Election Day. He kicked off his cross-country Votos por América! tour in East San Jose, California, and finished in Washington, D.C. in August. The native Honduran hopes that he convinced immigrants to redirect the passion and energy aroused during the contentious immigration debate to the drive for voting rights.