LEADERSHIP IS NOT A TITLE

Vice President of Policy & Legislation, Earthjustice, Earthjustice

The Environmental Advocate

Raúl García brings the legal discipline of Earthjustice to the ecosystem — an environmental advocate who has risen from legislative counsel to Vice President of Policy and Legislation at the nation's premier environmental law organization. He leads a team of advocates working with Congress, federal agencies, and the White House to advance the most consequential policy issues around climate, environmental health, and biodiversity — centering the voices of frontline communities in every campaign.

Environmental justice is not a cause — it is a constitutional obligation.

Augustinian Recollect Priest & Educator | PhD Candidate in Education, Order of Augustinian Recollects / Colegio San Agustín, Panama City

The Spiritual Anchor

Father Pedro Gregorio de Jesús Rivas, OAR, carries the moral authority of a life devoted to faith, education, and the formation of young people across the Americas. An Augustinian Recollect from the Dominican Republic, he served for many years as Head of School at Colegio San Agustín in Panama City — leading one of the order's most important educational institutions in the hemisphere. Now completing his PhD in Education, his doctoral research integrates the Augustinian pedagogical tradition with contemporary questions of educational quality, human dignity, and the formation of ethical citizens.

Education is humanization. The true teacher awakens the interior master.

Executive Director of BeNeXT Global · Consultant, Efficio

Alistair Pablo Coll Corona operates at the intersection of global management consulting and hemispheric institutional leadership. He serves as a Consultant at Efficio — the world's largest independent procurement consultancy — working from the firm's Mexico City office on procurement strategy, operational optimization, and supply chain transformation. Within the BeNeXT ecosystem, Alistair is among the most consequential alumni in the organization's history: he entered as a project author through the Startup Las Americas track, served two terms as Chair of the Board of Advisors (2020–2021, 2024–2025) and as LATAM Strategic Liaison, and today serves as Executive Director of BeNeXT Global — overseeing the operational architecture of the institution and its programming across the Americas. A graduate of Universidad Panamericana in Industrial Engineering and Innovation, with additional credentials from IPADE in business management. That Alistair now leads both a practice at a global consultancy and a hemispheric leadership institution simultaneously, from Mexico City, is not a contradiction. It is the design working as intended.

State Representative, Texas House District 77 (El Paso), Texas House of Representatives

The Border Legislator

Vince Perez has redefined what border leadership looks like — not through rhetoric, but through institutional reinvention. Representing El Paso's District 77 in the Texas House of Representatives, he has authored historic legislation eliminating licensing barriers for Latin American specialty doctors to practice in Texas, turning a healthcare gap into a hemispheric bridge. He legislates from lived experience, understanding that the U.S.-Mexico relationship is not managed from Washington but from the communities that straddle the line.

Health, like justice, should know no barriers.

Former Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the United States, Embassy of the Dominican Republic

The Diplomatic Bridge

Ambassador José Tomás Pérez has spent a career at the crossroads of Caribbean diplomacy and hemispheric governance. Appointed by President Danilo Medina as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States in December 2014, he represented the Dominican Republic at the center of the most consequential bilateral conversations in the Caribbean corridor — from trade and DR-CAFTA implementation to immigration, diaspora engagement, and security cooperation.

Small nations carry outsized weight when they speak with clarity.

Senior Manager of Policy & Coalitions, National Women's Law Center, National Women's Law Center

The Policy Architect

Diana Ramirez is a policy leader who has spent nearly two decades building the institutional architecture of gender equity, workers' rights, and civic empowerment — from the halls of Congress to the National Women's Law Center. An El Paso native with an MBA from the University of Texas at El Paso, she carries the borderlands in her policy work: the understanding that the most important legal battles are fought on behalf of the women and workers who are least visible in the rooms where decisions are made.

Pay equity is not an economic issue — it is a gender and racial justice issue.

Minister, Government of Panama, Government of Panama

The Panamanian Connector

Laura Castro operates at the intersection of Panamanian governance and hemispheric engagement — a minister whose portfolio connects the isthmus to the broader architecture of inter-American cooperation. Panama's geographic position — the bridge between continents and oceans — mirrors her role as a connector between national governance and the hemispheric networks that shape the Americas.

Panama is not a small nation — it is a strategic crossroads.

Director of Media & Audio, University Medical Center El Paso | Sound Designer & Recording Engineer, University Medical Center El Paso

The Sound Architect

Diego Muñiz is a sound designer and recording engineer who started as a teenage techno DJ and producer in El Paso, Texas, moved to Houston to study audio production, landed a sound design position at a local television station two years into his education, recorded artists like Portugal. The Man live, and now directs media and audio editing for University Medical Center in his hometown of El Paso. He served as staff at the 2019 Futuro Summit at Georgetown University — bringing the same ear that shapes broadcast audio and live recording to the ecosystem's flagship gathering.

Sound is not background — it is architecture. He heard that in El Paso and has been building on it ever since.

Strategic Partnerships & National Accounts Leader, Fortune 100 CPG

The Enterprise Strategist

Rafael Hernandez is a strategic partnerships leader who has spent over a decade navigating the most complex commercial environments in America — managing portfolios ranging from $2 million to $100 million in annual revenue across Fortune 100 consumer packaged goods companies. From PepsiCo to Coca-Cola to Keurig Dr Pepper, he operates at the intersection of enterprise strategy and executive relationship management, translating corporate complexity into sustained growth. Bilingual in English and Spanish, he brings the same disciplined, solutions-oriented approach to the ecosystem that has earned him trusted advisor status with C-suite stakeholders at the nation's largest retailers.

Partnerships are infrastructure, not transactions.

Chief of Staff, U.S. Representative Jimmy Gomez (CA-34), U.S. Congress

The Capitol Strategist

Carlos Paz Jr. operates where policy meets power — in the corridors of the United States Congress. As Chief of Staff to Representative Jimmy Gomez of California's 34th District, he architects the daily translation of community need into legislative action. His career arc — from community organizing in Houston to the offices of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to the West Wing of congressional leadership — reflects a strategist who learned governance from the ground up.

Governance is an obligation, not a career.

Founder & CEO, Polydelta, Polydelta

The Quiet Architect

Jay Finch is the kind of leader who builds before he speaks — and then rarely speaks at all. As Founder and CEO of Polydelta, he designs artificial intelligence systems for government and public infrastructure, translating the complexity of machine learning into sovereign tools that serve democratic institutions. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Harvard Kennedy School MPA, and Stanford Sloan Fellow, Finch represents a generation of technologists who measure success not in headlines but in the resilience of the systems they leave behind.

Build quietly. Build well. Let the architecture speak.

Emmy Award-Winning Documentary Filmmaker, Director & Producer, Independent / Laredo Film Society Co-Founder

The Visual Chronicler

Karen Gaytán is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker whose lens captures the stories that institutions forget to tell. Born in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and raised in Laredo, Texas, she carries the U.S.-Mexico borderlands in her work — moving between independent documentary rigor and cinematic beauty to make the invisible visible. Her credits span from National Geographic to Netflix, and she co-founded the Laredo Film Society to build storytelling infrastructure in South Texas.

The border does not only need its stories told. It needs the capacity to tell them.

President & CEO, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute

The Institutional Voice

Marco A. Davis leads the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute — the institutional engine of Latino leadership development in Washington. With more than 25 years of experience spanning the Obama White House, venture philanthropy, and national civic organizations, he has built the pipeline between Latino communities and the corridors of federal power through rigorous, sustained investment in emerging leaders.

Representation requires infrastructure.

Career Diplomat, Mexican Foreign Service, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (SRE)

The Diplomatic Minister

Beatriz Nava brings the institutional depth of Mexico's Foreign Service to the ecosystem — a career diplomat whose postings have spanned Asia and the Americas. Now based in Washington, D.C., she carries the perspective of someone who has represented Mexican interests across vastly different diplomatic theaters, from Singapore and Hong Kong to the corridors of the Western Hemisphere's most important bilateral relationship.

The Americas are not defined by one capital but by many.

Former Secretary General, Organization of American States, Organization of American States (OAS)

The Hemispheric Statesman

Luis Almagro served as Secretary General of the Organization of American States from 2015 to 2025 — the highest multilateral office in the Western Hemisphere. A Uruguayan lawyer and career diplomat, he transformed the OAS from an institution often criticized for irrelevance into the most vocal defender of democratic governance in the Americas, staking his reputation on an uncompromising stance against authoritarian consolidation in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

I prefer to be called a traitor to the left than to be a traitor to the people.

Senior Official, DCCC, DCCC

The Political Operative

Analysse Escobar has touched every rung of American public service — from field organizing in Nevada to the White House to the strategic core of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — and at each level, she built the systems that others later walked across. A San Antonio native raised by an educator, she represents a generation of Latina leaders who measure power not in visibility but in the infrastructure they leave behind.

Some leaders speak from podiums. Others speak through the systems they quietly keep running.

Playwright, Actor & Educator | Co-Founder, NeXT | Former Chief Community Liaison, BeNeXT Global, NeXT / BeNeXT Global

The Artist Who Builds Institutions

Adriana Muñiz Lopez is a playwright, actor, singer, and educator who co-founded NeXT — then returned to the stage. A graduate of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, she is an El Paso native who moved between the creative and institutional worlds with a fluency that defines her career: from BeNeXT Global's first Community Liaison to Chief Community Liaison in Panama, from Futuro Summit staff at Georgetown (2019) to the performing arts. She is the rare co-founder who built an institution and then went back to making art — carrying the ecosystem's DNA into every stage she steps onto.

She builds institutions the way she writes plays — with presence, listening, and the willingness to hold a room together.

Physician — Geriatrics & Internal Medicine | Founder, Medikah Health, Medikah Health / University Medical Center of El Paso

The Physician Founder

Dr. Jose Luis Aguirre is a physician who practices on both sides of the border — and builds systems designed to erase the line between them. Board-certified in Geriatrics and Internal Medicine, he practices at University Medical Center of El Paso while founding Medikah Health, a cross-border healthcare platform associated with BeNeXT Global. His trajectory is the border itself made biographical: a B.A. in Psychology from USC, a medical degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, private practice in Ciudad Juárez, residency at William Beaumont Army Medical Center, a Geriatric Medicine fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine, and now — the construction of digital health infrastructure designed to connect the Americas.

Healthcare innovation must be grounded in clinical reality — on both sides of the border.

Emeritus Curator & Former Chief Curator, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Scholar

Dr. Peter L. Jakab spent over four decades at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, rising from curator to Chief Curator and Associate Director for Collections and Curatorial Affairs. A historian of technology and invention, he is one of the world's foremost scholars on the Wright Brothers — proving through rigorous archival work that heritage and innovation are not opposites but collaborators.

Innovation is a process, not a miracle.

Senior Director for Partner Success, The College Board · Founder, Elevare Group Global

Manager, Deloitte | USAID CLA Advisor, Deloitte

The Conflict Strategist

Allen Tullos is a strategy professional who has spent a decade navigating the most complex operating environments on earth — from conflict zones in Lebanon to health system reconstruction in wartime Ukraine — applying the discipline of data-driven analysis to problems that defy simple solutions. A Brownsville, Texas native who started a film club at 16 with a $10,000 grant, interned at the BBC in London, directed Brooklyn get-out-the-vote operations for Obama, and consulted for the State Department on violent extremism in Tripoli, he now manages Deloitte's work on USAID's Ukraine Health Reform Support activity, integrating adaptive management practices to restore a health system and reconnect people to care in a dynamic wartime environment.

The most important analytical work happens in the most difficult environments.

Chief Academic Officer & Co-Founder, NeXT | Cultural Historian, PhD, NeXT / The University of Texas at Austin

The Universe Builder

Andrew Donaldson Hamsher is a cultural historian and co-founder of the original ecosystem that today operates as BeNeXT Global, Futuro las Américas, and NeXT. He and Héctor H. López first met as next-door neighbors on the sixth floor of Village C East at Georgetown University during their freshman year — two students whose opposing instincts on philosophy, politics, and culture became the engine of a friendship and, eventually, of a forty-year ecosystem-in-the-making. They roomed together as sophomores. Andrew studied film at NYU and went on to earn his PhD in American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin — a 440-page dissertation on authorship, transmedia storytelling, and the rise of superhero cinema, "You've Become Part of a Bigger Universe": Authorship, Stan Lee, and the Rise of Superhero Cinema. In 2011 he and Héctor launched what was then called NeXT — New Exponential Thought Organization — the single umbrella that over the years split into BeNeXT for institutional design, Futuro for the convening community, and NeXT for credentialing. Andrew was there at Futuro's original architecture and at every hallmark Georgetown formation that followed. At NeXT he does the same thing he studied at Marvel: builds the architecture for a universe of credentials where each component connects to a larger, coherent whole.

Every universe needs an architecture. He builds the one that makes learning visible.

Internationalist & Crisis Manager | Cámara de Diputados | NHI Project Administrator, Cámara de Diputados / Fundación Corazones Generosos / National Hispanic Institute

The Caribbean Strategist

Juan Luis Contreras is an internationalist who operates across three worlds simultaneously — Dominican legislative governance, Caribbean philanthropy, and hemispheric youth leadership. With a master's in International Law, Foreign Trade, and International Jurisprudence from ISDE and a degree in International Relations from Universidad Católica Santo Domingo, he brings the rigor of international legal training to a career that spans the Dominican Cámara de Diputados, the Fundación Corazones Generosos, and nearly a decade as Project Administrator at the National Hispanic Institute.

The Caribbean is not peripheral — it is a corridor between worlds.

Head of the Hispanic Reading Room & Law Team Section Head, Library of Congress, Library of Congress

The Quiet Catalyst

Carlos Olave is the Head of the Hispanic Reading Room at the Library of Congress — the first of the Area Studies reading rooms, founded in 1939 as the center for studies in Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American culture. Born in Colombia and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he grew up in a household where his father practiced medicine and cultural enrichment was not optional — classical music, museums, concerts, and travel shaped a mind that would spend four decades curating the hemisphere's intellectual record. He now also serves as Law Team Section Head in the Law Library, managing the cataloging infrastructure for 2.9 million items.

Archives are where the Americas come to remember themselves.

Federal Deputy, Chamber of Deputies of Mexico (LXVI Legislature), Mexican Chamber of Deputies

The Constitutional Tactician

Iraís Virginia Reyes de la Torre is a constitutional lawyer who became a legislator — not to accumulate power, but to reconstruct the systems that distribute it. Representing Nuevo León in Mexico's Chamber of Deputies through Movimiento Ciudadano, she brings the rigor of international legal training, the clarity of an educator, and the conviction that law is only meaningful when it restores dignity to those it was designed to protect.

The law only matters when it restores dignity.

Minister of Development, Government of Colombia

The Development Minister

Marta Peña Jaramillo serves as a Minister of Development in Colombia — her portfolio encompassing the institutional frameworks that determine how resources reach the communities that need them most. Her work connects macroeconomic policy to the micro-reality of community transformation, operating at the intersection of governance and social impact.

Development is measured by whether resources reach those who need them most.

Professional Lecturer & Academic Director, Community Scholars Program, Georgetown University, Georgetown University

The Literary Guardian

Elizabeth Velez has spent more than thirty years at Georgetown University teaching the one skill that makes all others possible: the ability to think clearly and express yourself with precision. As Academic Director of the Community Scholars Program — an academic program focused on critical writing and reading for first-generation students — and Professional Lecturer in the Women's Studies Program, she has cultivated in generations of students the capacity for language, argument, and self-expression that makes civic life possible. A writer, journalist, feminist, and occasional poet, she describes herself primarily as a teacher.

I think of myself as a writer, journalist, feminist and occasional poet — but primarily I describe myself as a teacher.

Intelligence Analyst, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Air Force

The Intelligence Analyst

Getsemani Yañez brings the analytical discipline of U.S. Air Force intelligence to the ecosystem — a mind trained to process complexity, identify patterns, and deliver clarity under pressure. Her service represents the intersection of duty, precision, and hemispheric security — connecting the ecosystem to the institutions that safeguard democratic order.

Clarity is a product of discipline.

Vice President of Digital Communications, National Immigration Forum, National Immigration Forum

The Digital Mobilizer

Marcela Aguirre turns stories into movements. As Vice President of Digital Communications at the National Immigration Forum in Washington, D.C., she leads campaigns that translate the complexity of immigration policy into narratives that move people — literally, from their screens to the halls of Congress. Born and raised in El Paso, Texas, she carries the borderlands in her work: the understanding that the most important stories are told by the people living them.

People show up when they feel seen.

Faculty, IPADE — Control and Management Information, IPADE Business School

Francisco Tallabs sits at the intersection of academic rigor and consulting practice. Faculty at IPADE Business School in the Control and Management Information area, he also carries Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt training and an alumni connection to PwC. He joined the Author × AI MMXXVI cohort as a senior reviewer, pressure-testing the operational and control assumptions of the projects being built.

Senior Export Manager, CASA — Central & South America, Danone

Gerardo Cardenas leads CASA's commercial and export operations across Central and South America in the FMCG and beverages category. His remit covers sales strategy, market expansion, trade compliance, and supply chain across multiple countries. He joined the Author × AI MMXXVI cohort as a partner mentor, bringing field perspective on what it actually takes to operate a regional business at scale.

Consultant, Efficio (previously Mastercard Advisors), Efficio

Emiliano Tapia is a consultant at Efficio, the global procurement and supply chain firm, having moved over from Mastercard Advisors where he focused on strategic solutions and market opportunities. A CFA Level 1 holder and Bloomberg Market Concepts certified, his instincts run quantitative: market sizing, financial analysis, and execution against decision frameworks. He joined the Author × AI MMXXVI cohort as an invited partner, pressure-testing the consulting and commercial directions of the projects on the floor.

COO at Nextia · Co-founder, hybridge.education / eugenia.ai / inviertete.org, Nextia

Sebastian Mathus is Chief Operating Officer at Nextia and co-founder of four ventures spun from the same operator playbook: hybridge.education (learning), eugenia.ai (AI), nextia.mx (consulting), and inviertete.org (financial literacy). He moves between strategy advisor and full operator, building companies he advises. He joined the Author × AI MMXXVI cohort as a partner mentor, especially valuable to participants thinking about ed-tech and AI-native product.

Strategy Consulting — Monitor Deloitte, Deloitte

Luis de la Mora works in strategy consulting at Monitor Deloitte, the firm's specialized strategy practice, advising clients on long-horizon transformation and competitive positioning. He joined the Author × AI MMXXVI cohort as a partner mentor, contributing the strategic lens that translates a product instinct into a defensible market position.