OUR MISSION:To Promote Excellence in Hispanic Marketing

 



The Hispanic Marketing & Communication Association is a non-for-profit, Miami-based, independent organization whose members are individuals of diverse backgrounds with a common interest in the Hispanic market in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Our roundtables and seminars serve as forums to discuss interesting, timely issues; to encourage professional development; and to provide opportunities to network among practitioners in marketing, advertising, media, public relations, and other communication fields, who practice or have an interest in the Hispanic Market.



A 17-year Marketing and Public Relations veteran, Elena has worked extensively with U.S. and international Hispanic markets. Prior to founding her own Marketing and Public Relations firm four years ago, she headed the Hispanic practice at the largest independent public relations firm in Florida. Before that, she attended law school nights while she was in charge of domestic and international Hispanic marketing/public relations for a major private South Florida company. She began her career working in the Public Information Office of one of the best known cities in the U.S. Multilingual and a published author, she is a graduate of Leadership Miami, the Center for Creative Leadership, the National Hispana Leadership Institute, the Embassy of Spain Young Hispanic Americans, the Cuban American National Council, and the Harvard John. F. Kennedy School of Government leadership programs. She is a 1988 recipient of the Up & Comers Award in Public Relations. A past chairwoman of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce Hispanic Business Group, Elena is also founding President of the Hispanic Marketing & Communication Association, HMCA, a Miami-based organization that focuses on marketing and business communications related to Hispanic markets. She is past chairwoman of the National Public Relations Society of America, PRSA Multicultural Section. She is a member of the prestigious PRSA Counselors Academy. She has served on a number of community boards including: the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce Board of Governors, the Health Council of South Florida, the Alliance Francaise de Miami , the SEFLIN Free-Net Miami Advisory Board, STARS/H.O.P.E., the National Association of Women Business Owners, and Carrfour Corporation.

As a professional Elena brings special insight and broad knowledge to the field of communications through her experience in both corporate and agency environments during her career. She has worked as a journalist (in English and Spanish) and language instructor. She holds advanced degrees in international business and law and speaks four languages.

Elena co-founded the first Public Relations Society of America Section dedicated to the Hispanic market. She is a dedicated community volunteer, a graduate of several leadership programs and the recipient of the Up & Comers Award in Public Relations.

* National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), Board Member 1998-1999
* Past Chair of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) National Multicultural Section 1999
* Past Chairwoman of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce Hispanic Business Group 1995-97
* Founding President Hispanic Market & Communication Association (HMCA) - present
* Executive Committee and Board Member of the Health Council of South Florida - present
* Board Member Alliance Francaise de Miami - 1999-2000
* Speak Out Public Speaking Clinic graduate 1999
* Co-Chair Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce (GMCC) Procurement Committee- 1999-2000
* Graduate of the Young Hispanic Leaders Program of the Embassy of Spain
* Fellow National Hispana Leadership Institute (NHLI) - 1999




Born and raised in Guatemala City, Guatemala, Juan received a degree in Pre-Med at Universidad Francisco Marroquín. After graduating, he decided to pursue a career in business, beginning post graduate studies in the same University’s MBA program, ESEADE (Escuela Superior de Economía y Administración de Empresas).

During school and after earning his MBA with emphasis in Marketing and Total Productivity Management, graduating Cum Laude, he held several local management positions, culminating with a successful 5-year career in Guatemala’s leading newspaper, Prensa Libre.

It was during the time at Prensa Libre that he met with my current employer, and after some time was offered the position with the company, Wizard of Ads, Inc. moving to Austin, TX where he is the Market Research Director. He is spearheading the Hispanic branch of the company, through the weblog Hispanic Trending.

Suzanne Irizarry de López, is a seasoned marketing and communication professional who has been researching Hispanic/Latino consumers for over 12 years. She worked for several known market research firms as Cheskin, Cultural Access, Common Knowledge and Savitz. Her career spans from Hispanic markets researcher to interpreter for the City of Dallas Municipal Court and Children’s Hospital, social worker, educator, and journalist. She spent her childhood in Puerto Rico, went to Philadelphia to study and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in Communications and Sociology.

Suzanne, currently residing in Texas, joined Bilingual Research Services, a division of Eastern Research Services, as Director of Business Development. BRS reflects El Nuevo general market with its 300 bilingual market research interviewers, each and every one capable of gathering Americans’ views and opinions, in their language of choice, be it Spanish, English or Spanglish.

Tony Moreno is a Hispanic marketing consultant and multimedia event producer. He has been a PR and marketing advisor to a select group of clients, including printed and audiovisual media companies. He has also produced multimedia events, creating unique atmospheres with Latin flavors.

For the past 20 years, Tony has been involved in technology based companies including Venezuela's computer industry leader A-Weil PC, multimedia producer VideoProm International, his consulting firm Huellas.com, and web design venture Tri1.com.

He’s a graduate of the Southwest Broward Leadership X class and Political Training Institute. He’s also an ATM Bronze Toastmaster.



Sylvia Nieto-Vidal is Managing Partner of Operations at Multicultural Insights a certified minority, woman-owned full-service market research firm for multicultural and niche markets located in Miami, Florida. Multicultural Insights provides full-service qualitative and quantitative research for Hispanic, African American and other niche markets in the U.S. as well as throughout Latin America.

Nieto-Vidal has designed, set-up, managed, overseen and conducted qualitative and quantitative research for over 17 years for Fortune 100 companies such as Pepsi-Cola, Cingular, SBC, Pfizer, Pizza Hut, Ford Motor Company, Colgate-Palmolive, and Radio Shack among others.


Richard Velez is Director of Strategic Services for MASS Promotions, a leading Hispanic integrated marketing and strategic promotions company based in Miami.

He joined MASS in 1999 and works to help develop strategies that enable clients to effectively touch Hispanics where they work, live, play, and shop.

Richard has contributed his efforts and talents to projects for clients such as Unilever Bestfoods, (multiple brands, including Knorr), Unilever HPC (Snuggle, ‘all’, Caress), Kimberly-Clark (all brands), and Gerber. He also frequents the speaker circuit, presenting a variety of workshops on Hispanic marketing.

Richard’s prior experience includes over 10 years in technical sales and marketing, representing Silicon Valley startups as well as Fortune 500 companies. He is a proud graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY, which incidentally happens to be the home of the first association of Latin American students (La Union Hispano Americana-1898) ever to be founded at a U.S. university.

A seasoned marketing communications professional, Lourdes has held senior management roles at four of the top international public relations firms worldwide and currently serves as president of de la Group, a boutique public relations consultancy she founded in Miami. She has more than a decade of high-level strategic counseling, media relations, corporate communications, consumer-driven marketing, special events and crisis communications experience, across US, US/Hispanic and Latin American markets.  Current clients include the Cancun Convention and Visitors Bureau, Yahoo! en español, Geek Squad, Entenmann’s and Filpi restaurants.

Her broad marketing communications experience spans across a wide variety of industries, including tourism and lifestyle, food and beverage, retail, packaged goods, health care, telecommunications, sports, media, entertainment and technology.

Most recently, Lourdes headed Edelman's Miami office, where she spearheaded the Cancun Convention and Visitors Bureau North American program, as well as managed the annual Bacardi Cup sailing regatta and special events for the Nasdaq-100 Open tennis tournament.  She also handled Hispanic-focused projects for various blue-chip consumer brands including Acuvue, Dove, AXE deodorant, AstraZeneca, Cordis among others.

Lourdes began her career at Ketchum Public Relations and has since worked at Fleishman-Hillard, Weber Shandwick Worldwide, Avisena Inc. and Edelman.

A bicultural, bilingual professional (Spanish/English), Lourdes received her bachelor's degree in journalism, with a concentration in public relations and advertising, from the University of Central Florida in Orlando.