JORGE FERRAEZ WAS BORN IN the city of Merida in Mexico and grew up in Mexico City. Both his parents got their college degrees – his mom as a business administrator and his dad as an architect. On both sides of the family, professional degrees were common, so it never crossed his mind when he was growing up that his experience could be the exception. His obstacles were more on the side of the financial conditions of his family to be able to support him and his college degree. He had to work from the very start to pay for his studies.

The best advice he has ever heard on this topic is that we Latinos need to have more ownership of media outlets and content production companies. If we don't have ownership, we will always be asking for our share. The thing is not to have to ask, but to own the media and use it to include Latino inspired and driven content on all these platforms. In one word: ownership.

Jorge is fortunate to be a publisher and the owner of his own publishing company, which has been around for 20 years and has a great recognition and brand equity. His mission statement is to promote Latino leadership across all areas and industries, to showcase the stories of success of Latinos in America, thus highlighting the contributions they are making to our country and society.

In terms of the content, the names, stories, and places are real and alive. These are actual humans and the organizations led by them that are functioning parts of our communities. They exist, and if they exist, it means that others can exist too. They are successful cases that can be reproduced and can occur again. Others can be inspired to make them happen.

Ownership – that's the best way to influence and advance Latinos in media. Unless you own the media, you will always be soliciting an opportunity. Latinos need to start owning or being at least part owners of big media companies. The news media is the fourth power! We need to invest and create our own media and not depend on other media, with interests that won't always be in our favor. Also, the numbers should be good enough to persuade the media giants to start moving the needle for better inclusion of Latinos in their outlets. The 2020 Census should be the biggest trigger for these types of policy changes. Big corporations should start feeling the pressure to expand their outreach for diversity and inclusion in the Hispanic markets very soon.

Manny Ruiz was born and raised in a working‐class neighborhood in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, in a small duplex owned by his maternal grandparents, who raised him. His grandfather Manolo, whom he was named after, came to the United States in 1921 and married Manny's grandmother Margarita in New York City in 1941. His mom was born in Miami in 1948, so he is a second‐generation American from his mom's side and the first of that small part of the family to have a college degree.

In terms of academics, he always struggled mightily, especially with math. He went to summer school for math in six and seventh grade and even repeated his entire senior year, largely because he struggled at math. While he was very bad at math, he was actually excellent at logic and arithmetic, he did well in English and especially excelled at journalism, both in high school and college. It was because of journalism and some gutsy work as a student newspaper editor that Manny went to college for free and with some help from Pell Grants, which he qualified for because of his household's very low income.

The issues that plague the Latino community are not the digital divide. It's the Latino Divide, and it must be fixed before we can meaningfully change the decision making that is almost always imposed on our community. The African American community has found its voice because it has united. They are at the decision‐making table in ways that run circles around the Latino community, but the Hispanic community's issue is that it is divided, especially during the four years of President Trump's administration. It would take a once‐in‐a‐century, moderate, coalition‐building Latino leader to knit our communities together cohesively with a coherent story that helps us realize our fullest potential.

Manny's first company was Hispanic PR Wire, which he launched in 2008 and then sold in seven years for $5.5 million to his longtime competitor PR Newswire (now Cision). Following that transaction Manny become the founder of the Latino social media and marketing industry with the company Hispanicize, which he sold two years later. This established his reputation as a successful media mogul, but today he is infinitely prouder of his current career chapter. Now, Manny is the cofounder and senior partner in the next generation ventures of what both of those companies would have been today. Brilla Media is the successor to Hispanicize and Latinx Newswire and represents what he calls Hispanic PR Wire 3.0.

Even though it may be accurate to say he is a serial media entrepreneur, he would like to think of himself as a journalist for life, because he went into the media industry as a reporter to help save the world. Today, he is the proud cofounder and senior partner in various media and content distribution ventures, including Brilla Media, Latinx Newswire, Pop Culture Newswire, and RetroPop Media. All of these ventures are knit together by culture, storytelling, and guaranteed distribution, and that's what he is excited about the most.

With regards to diversity and inclusion, Manny's track record has always made him a bit of an outsider in the Hispanic community because he has been very public in saying we've variously been either anemic in the grip of Trump or have totally sold out to the Democratic Party that takes us for granted. Hollywood is also very blasé toward us because we don't demand a seat at the table.

Over the past two decades, Manny has had more than 25 business partners and at least 60 percent of them, including the main executives of his ventures, have been Latinas. This has been an organic choice: he doesn't feel a motive to be politically correct in hiring, but he will admit that he is proud to be a father of three little girls.

Latinos can succeed in media by harnessing the power of social media, and once they have established a consistent and large audience, determining how they will scale their audiences into businesses that are multifaceted, monetizable, and scalable. Maria Marin, for example, is a terrific model of someone who started as an influencer and today is rocketing into other ventures birthed from her sheer output of engaging, quality content. One of the biggest obstacles he sees from many Latinos in media and social media is that we don't know how to scale our platforms. He learned to do this with his previous two media ventures, but it was hard because the other problem many of us face is that we lack mentors in media who have actually succeeded. The fact that a Latino created and sold even one media company – let alone two – is extremely rare, and that rarity is disheartening. The other major challenge Latinos face is that media companies typically require capital to build, and many times we really don't know where to find this capital. Access to capital is a severe issue for Latino entrepreneurs, but especially for those in media.

Brilla Media provides brand marketers with innovative Latinx‐branded entertainment, media, and experiential storytelling. The fact that Manny's company is Latino owned and operated is by itself unique – if not sad – because they are one of the only companies in the entire United States that offers proprietary premium video content distribution for brands via paid, owned, earned Media.

Brilla Media features five service pillars: Brilla Media (distribution), Brilla Live (festivals and livestreams), Brilla Creative (original storytelling), Brilla Social (influencer and social media amplification), and Brilla Purpose (social good).

To do what they do and say that they are authentically Latino‐owned and operated should not be a headline and something they encourage brands that want to work with Latino‐owned and operated companies to delve into with their competitors.

Maria Cardona was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and was around two and a half years old when her family arrived in the United States seeking better opportunities for her father to make a living and for them to have a brighter future. They settled in Florida and her father began work as an engineer with the Florida Telephone Company. Her father had the privilege of going to college in Colombia but her mother had only a high school education. So, Maria is the first woman in her family to graduate from college. Maria was very lucky to have parents who encouraged her from when she was a little girl and pushed her to go beyond any perceived limits.

One of Maria's favorite stories, told to her by her dad later in life, was how when he finally had the opportunity to be a decision‐maker in his department at the Florida Telephone Company, he hired two women to be head engineers. That was a scandal! The men in her dad's department who were convinced they would get those jobs were furious! They demanded to know why her father had given these jobs, with prestige, power, and money, to women. How dare he choose women over the men who worked for him? When her father was confronted he simply said, “Because they were the best qualified.” That was the extent of his explanations. With that simple but groundbreaking decision, her father changed the course of hiring at the company and opened a door that had been unavailable to women until that point.

Through these stories and others, Maria learned why her parents always encouraged her to live her life by assuming there were no limits. When an obstacle was put in front of her, she was taught to either knock it down or figure out a way around it. Maria was taught to assume she could do anything, not the other way around. Maria was taught that with hard work and the will to believe in herself, the sky was the limit.

Maria was extremely lucky to have had parents and mentors who believed she could succeed and who pushed her to do whatever she was interested in and who understood that her drive and her self‐confidence would be her shield in a world that would try to stop a young Latina from achieving the heights of her dreams and aspirations. She wishes to tell her parents, “Gracias, Papi, gracias, Mami!”

Maria had the opportunity throughout her career to work on technology issues in the Latino community and understand all too well how this divide has kept way too many of our young children and young adults from achieving what could have been the heights they aspired to reach. It is ironic that a community that adapted faster to technology and at younger ages still has tremendous disadvantages in terms of access and having reliable technology, whether that means an internet connection at home or computers and tablets that can accommodate today's homework assignments that most children are getting from their teachers in the new normal of a virtual education.

Corporations can have transformational impact on the future of technology access to communities that have been historically left behind. Low‐cost programs that provide broadband access either through a home internet connection or through smartphones can give families the connections they need to be able to access the critical services the internet provides. These days, healthcare, education, job‐training services, college applications, job applications, and even keeping in touch with far‐away family and friends can be done only with a strong enough broadband internet connection.

Companies in the technology sector can also have a positive impact by ensuring there is diversity within their ranks and make training programs for young engineers and/or internships available to those who aspire to work in these important tech and telecommunications fields.

Public policy solutions at the federal, state, and local level and academic institutions can be incredibly impactful as well. Public education needs to start prioritizing technology and a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education at much younger ages and not just in high school. These curricula should be started in preschool so that all kids, from all backgrounds, and especially girls of color, understand that it is all within their reach and not something that is just available for the privileged few. We would all be better off if all our kids were to start accessing these valuable STEM subjects from the time they are able to look at a screen. This is the vital mission that Ad Astra Media is seeking to accomplish – Es Tiempo.

Maria is a principal at a nationally renowned public affairs firm where she leads the Latino Strategies and Multicultural Practices. She is also a CNN en Español political commentator. Maria has had the privilege of having a national platform – through her television commentary – but also through her columns and public speaking opportunities, to address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. And she has always tried to put an emphasis on the importance of technology, telecommunications, and digital issues as areas where diversity needs to be front and center. Maria emphasizes that we have seen the data from high‐tech firms in terms of what a dearth of diversity they have, and she calls it dismal and very discouraging. But that is where community activists, companies, and trailblazing leaders at these very same corporations can make transformational change – they just need to have the will to make it happen and use the data that exists to prove the problem is monumental and needs to change.

Data is imperative because it tells us where we are falling behind and where we need to do better. And we need to do better in all areas of the STEM fields. These jobs are by far better‐paying jobs, and lead to more long‐term stability for communities than other fields. We also need to push the leaders in these sectors to become allies of ours and work toward common goals. But what we must all understand is that we will not see the change we need until we see more people of color and Latinos and Latinas in the positions where these decisions are made – meaning on the boards of these corporations, as their CEOs, CFOs, COOs, and other C‐suite offices. This is the ultimate goal and we cannot rest until we are there and our numbers equal what our population represents.

Diversity is front and center for all of us now, so now is the time when we need to make the boldest change. We know that diversity is beneficial for a company and that diversity and equity that truly represent a companies' consumers will give the biggest ROI to that very same company. It is not just the right thing to do but it is the best thing to do for stockholders and for the company's bottom line. A win‐win, indeed!

Latinos can succeed in media by speaking out on behalf of our community and the issues that are important to us. When we tell our stories, our quintessential American stories, we succeed. When we ignore the negative voices in our heads telling us we don't matter, we succeed. And when we don't let other naysayers, or even doors being slammed in our faces, dissuade us from speaking out, speaking up, demanding a seat at the table, having the audacity to pull up a chair even when we are not invited, we succeed. There will always be obstacles, either real or perceived, either in our faces or in our minds. We can either choose to knock down these obstacles or figure out a way around them.

Maria has found that we need to come to the table prepared, having done our homework and our research. Knowing more than the person next to us. No excuses, because there may be no second chances. Especially for people who look like us or sound like us or have last names like us. That is the cold reality. Let's not let it be what defines us.

Pedro Guerrero grew up in Hayward, California. His mother and his family moved there from Zináparo, Michoacán, to reunite with his grandfather, who had landed a job at a local cannery. Back then, Hayward was a big canning town and the local canneries were some of its largest employers. His mother was the first to go to college in her family. She got her BA in education from California State University, Hayward.

His dad grew up on the East Coast and moved to California to attend Stanford, where he received his master's degree in education. One of his first teaching jobs was with the Hayward Unified School District. He met Pedro's mother when she walked into his classroom and introduced herself as his new teacher's assistant.

In many ways, he had a leg up on his classmates: both of his parents were educators and keenly aware of the challenges young Mexican American kids had growing up in a town like Hayward. The public high schools in Hayward were tough. There was a lot of gang activity and his circle of Latino friends was susceptible to being recruited by gangs. So, although they were public school educators, his parents explored other educational options for him. His mom had heard of a program called A Better Chance (ABC) and signed him up. ABC helps minority students attend preparatory schools, and through the help of the program, he received a scholarship to attend St. George's School, a private boarding school in Newport, Rhode Island.

St. George's opened up an entire universe of opportunities in his education and personal development. While there, he learned about liberal art colleges of which he was previously unfamiliar – like Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he received his undergraduate degree.

Pedro has been thinking about the digital divide a lot these days, and it's real. There are many ways in which a lack of tech is hurting our progress, and there are many ways in which tech itself is holding us back. On the educational front, the threat of the digital divide is clear—and the COVID‐19 pandemic exposed a massive weakness in our society.

Remote learning that's taken place over the past 12 to 18 months is going to have disastrous, generational consequences on not just the Latino community but also the African American community, immigrant communities, rural communities, and working families that do not have the luxury of working from home.

Many of these communities do not have the hardware – or even the internet service – to work remotely. Nor do they have the budget to pay for an increase in data usage on their monthly bills. Some immigrant communities don't have the opportunities to help students whose homework and lesson plans are in English. There's so much more at stake and at risk by keeping kids, especially Latino kids, out of school.

Then again, because we've long been divesting from public education, the chickens have come home to roost at the expense of students. We've been closing down schools, closing programs, not paying teachers enough, and allowing the student‐teacher ratio to reach an unsustainable, and unhealthy, level.

We've essentially been defunding our future so much that we need smaller classrooms with state‐of‐the art HVAC, with state‐of‐the art technology, and with teachers who feel valued so that if, God forbid, we have a pandemic, at least the kids have a safe place to congregate and learn.

So, Pedro expresses how terribly concerned he is with the digital divide and his fear is this: 20 years from now when we wonder why the rates of incarceration in the Latino community have spiked or why there's an increase in Latinos dropping out of school, we're going to trace it back to the drought our community experienced in education, athletics, and socializing with peers. It will be like looking at the rings of a tree and finding exactly when the tree experienced drought. And for us, the experience will be severe.

To continue to evolve the Latino digital intelligence, Pedro believes we have to do three things in parallel. One, we need to build our own table. Pedro is naturally impatient and tired of waiting – so, time to build our own. Two, we need to continue to demand that companies include Latinos in their diversity efforts at all levels, from entry level to corporate director level. Three, we need to intentionally help other Latinos by opening doors, hiring them, procuring Latino vendors, and investing in Latino‐owned companies.

We are intentional in selecting the executives we feature on the covers of our magazines, as well as those executives we profile in our newsletters and in our social media campaigns. We always promote the diversity of the executives we are privileged to profile. Doing so reduces the deficit of success stories from underrepresented communities.

So many of us are out there in plain sight, working hard. His team has an intentionality—each and every time they develop content—to promote their work with the lens of DEI.

Since he founded Guerrero in 2006, they have been focused on connecting with executives, getting to know them, and sharing their narratives across the brands they own. Their most well known of those brands is Hispanic Executive, which has provided us with the luxury to recognize and promote the depth of Latino leadership in our business community.

At a Hispanic Executive event in 2015, where we honored executives featured in our Top 10 Líderes issue, he met honoree, Ricardo Anzaldua, who at the time was the EVP and GC of Metlife. They both started talking about creating a new network for Latinos who shared similar academic experiences. That network would not only drive value to its members but also help a company like Metlife meet top Latino talent. The conversation set the groundwork for what would become the Alumni Society, which as of today is a network of over 4,800 Latinos who attended some of the top schools in the country.

The Alumni Society has been fortunate to partner with companies like Facebook, Goldman Sachs, TPG, Nike, and Sequoia Capital, each of which understands the value of making meaningful connections with Latinos for senior level positions.

They have also recently launched a retained search service, offering further proof that Guerrero has evolved into more than just a publisher—they sit at the center of content, professional networks, and executive search services with a focus on DEI.

Become teachers. Become school administrators. Run for office – be it with a school board or a city council. We need a hand in directing and crafting educational policy. Pedro is excited that with the confirmation of Miguel Cardona as secretary of education, we now have an educator and a Latino in a top job of an administration. We need to keep demanding that our stories are included in the historical narrative of American history and not just heard during Hispanic Heritage Month.

Pedro also recalls his familial experience and what he heard at the dinner table listening to his parents talk about work. Having parental involvement is critical for a student's success. A child's education doesn't stop at the school's doors. It's important that there is a line of communication and respect between the parents and the teachers. Language barriers and cultural gaps need to be crossed. Responsibility lies with the schools, so they need to have the emotional and cultural awareness to be able to connect with parents. This is another major component to the continued evolution of Latino digital intelligence.

Carlos Pérez was born in Mexico City, but grew up in El Chante, a small town outside Guadalajara. There, for a period of time, he was separated from his mother, who had come to the United States to work and send money back home. During her absence, his aunts served as his surrogate parents. “They had tremendous faith in me,” he recalls. They would always tell him, “Vas a hacer cosas grandes.” That faith gave him the permission to dream and the confidence to know that what he dreamed could be a reality.

In 1972, Carlos was accepted into the Art and Design Program at San José State University under the EOP Program and received a grant in order to attend higher education. Had it not been for the EOP program he would not have been able to get a university education.

But let's talk about the time he drew the Apple logo. Like any self‐respecting technophile, Carlos eschews any mention of honors or awards when asked of his achievements and goes straight to the tools of his trade. He can recap every detail associated with his past projects with photographic clarity. For example, he can tell you the weight of the pencil, the opacity of the tissue, and the precise angle of every stroke he used to create the first sketches of the Apple logo.

But even these aspects of his work come to him as an afterthought. It's when he talks about his artistic origins that his voice catches and he discusses some of his most vivid memories – memories that have surprisingly little to do with Silicon Valley and the burgeoning technological revolution that would set the stage for his work as a graphic artist. This transformative time would serve as a precursor to another.

The design industry was one of the first to be reinvented by the digital age. Like any transition, this brought the end of an old state, complete with a set of tools and techniques that had remained relatively constant until then. But unlike previous transitions, the industry's new state wasn't just new, it was ever‐changing. The space it came to inhabit is normal now but was alien at the time—a world of constant updates and mandatory upgrades, where planned obsolescence is the only thing anyone can predict.

As a designer on the first marketing communications team to manage the Apple account, Carlos's work gestured toward the change about to come. In his portfolio are numerous collateral design and production assets used to help launch the Apple II. Anyone who used the Apple II could never forget it. With its 1‐megahertz processor and 4‐kilobyte memory, it teleported middle schoolers everywhere. Who can forget the iconic game “The Oregon Trail”? It turned fourth‐period classrooms into small‐game hunting preserves. It was 11 pounds of beige bliss. It was also the first time a lot of kids—especially those of working‐class backgrounds—ever explored the world of computing.

In 1977, Carlos Pérez and Rob Janoff were colleagues at Regis McKenna. Rob designed the Apple mark, while Carlos created its initial rendering and master artwork. Carlos also rendered the typographical solutions that would accompany the Apple logo brand, designed and art‐directed the first Apple newsletter, and created the masthead for and codesigned the first Apple magazine. He inked all of this by hand, relying on his mastery of drafting and illustration techniques, because the hardware and applications now ubiquitous in the realm of graphic design simply did not yet exist.

Carlos recalls this era with a kind of excitement that's difficult to put into words. It's in his eyes when he talks about the long‐haired, torn‐jeaned Steve Jobs walking in to talk shop, like it was no big deal. It's there when he reflects on the talent that helped inspire him, specifically, the design team consisting of Rob Janoff, James Ferris, Lee Beggs, Mauricio Arias, and others who, he says, “paved the way for the most recognizable mark on the planet.”

It is appropriate that at a time when most people were still groping in the dark for their on switches and screaming insults at their dot matrix printers, Carlos was doing some of the best design of his life. Upheavals were nothing new to him. Like other professional Latinos, he had transitioned between worlds before.

As a boy, his creative aspirations were so apparent that his aunts arranged for him to apprentice with a local artist. By 1972, he was in the United States, studying art and design at San José State University. Two years later he was awarded an apprenticeship by the Western Arts Director's Club, an honor reserved for only the top three graduates. This apprenticeship began another, at the prestigious advertising firm of Regis McKenna. He struck out on his own in 1980 with Carlos Pérez Design, Inc., now known as ArtOrigin. Here he has done work for both IBM and Hewlett Packard, leading design teams that helped launch product systems and develop typographical character systems. Today Carlos is working on publishing a book and on developing his own line of creative products based on his Latino/Chicano cultural heritage.

One of his ongoing commissions is with the Cinequest Film Festival. Pérez is the designer of the Festival's Maverick Spirit Award, which he has personally presented to Kevin Spacy, James Olmos, Sir Ben Kingsley, Lupe Ontiveros, Diablo Cody, William H. Macy, Spike Lee, Lalo Schifrin, Danny Glover, and Benjamin Bratt.

When asked about the things that drive him most today, Carlos comes back to family and community. His extended family includes a writer, photographer, nurse, make‐up artist, communications major, three grandchildren, and his wife and business partner, Analisa, all of whom live and work in San José. A product of the 1960s Chicano Student Movement, Carlos considers community‐building through the arts as central to his life as a creative professional and works consistently with South Bay nonprofits and arts organizations to connect art to the communities it serves. He hopes this will help “foster a cultural climate where creative thinkers are treated as professionals with equal credentials and not as third‐class citizens.” In such partnerships, he sees the importance of technology and abstract ideas, but he emphasizes the role of individual creativity “I'm reminded of a quote from advertising guru Bill Bernbach,” he says. “An idea can turn to dust or magic depending on the talent that rubs against it.”

We need to develop and support critical thinking skills in young people's lives … “I believe that STEM is not enough, we need to think STEAM,” says Carlos, which is at the core of Ad Astra Media. We must make community‐building through the arts as central to life as creative professionals.

Simón Silva was born in Mexicali, Mexico, in 1961 and came to the United States when he was just over one year old. He is one of 11 children, and he is still the only first‐generation college graduate from his family. The obstacles he faced to get to college and succeed were many, starting with the fact that he was dirt poor. Growing up, his greatest obstacle was his parents' misunderstanding about what education is and what it is for. Both of his parents believed education was a complete waste of time, probably because of their limited education, which ended after the third grade. There never was any support for his education from his parents and his overall family. He also grew up in a town and went to a school that still viewed Latino students as being limited in abilities and academic success. He also felt that not knowing what to expect from the educational process was limiting him, especially in choosing a career, so he felt that art was going to provide him with the greatest degree of success.

There are still great numbers of families that have limited or no access to the internet or the ability to buy adequate computer equipment. Simón also continues to encounter individuals in the corporate and educational world who have limited knowledge about the role that the arts can play in creating life‐long, creative individuals. Most educators believe the arts are simply a way to get students to follow directions and improve on their hand and eye coordination. There is also a tendency for most people to believe that the arts in general are irrelevant to a person's overall educational experience – most school districts misuse the arts and disrespect the arts. They believe that most children don't know how to draw and thus the disrespect of the arts continues to negatively affect the creativity and individuality of most students.

Throughout history we have put too much importance on technology; we believed that typewriters were going to make us better communicators, the internet was going to make us smarter, and yet these things have not done that at all. Technology and the digital age have given us tools, but information is just information until the individual is able to process and apply that information. It is critical for that individual to have the ability to apply their knowledge to a creative new concept or to solve problems. He believes that all of us at one point had about 90 percent of the so‐called “twenty‐first‐century skills,” and most of that was negatively affected by a lack of knowledge by parents and the education system. We can promote equity and inclusion by simply becoming aware of how the arts can continue to nurture and develop everyone's individuality and creativity, regardless of race, gender, or social class. Until we create a level playing field, things will not change for the masses.

The arts are not necessarily only to create great pieces of art – when taught correctly/effectively they can become an extension of our life‐long learning and create secure, creative minds. So first we need to redefine success and make sure that our perception of success includes more than just financial wealth; it should include individuality, social consciousness, political involvement, and a need to change things for future generations. We need to have artists who are willing to take risks, have something to say, and have something they would like to explore. Creating pretty images or reiterating old images are not going to change the views of anyone. We need to bring respect for the arts and help create a sense of respect and value for those who practice the arts. Visit www.simonsilva.com.