Manuel Abud

President

Telemundo Station Group

Manuel Abud was named President of the Telemundo Station Group in December 2011. Abud oversees Telemundo’s 15 owned local stations located within the United States, as well as Puerto Rico. A long-time Telemundo executive, Abud leads the Telemundo stations by developing and producing local content, strengthening the stations’ commitment to their local community. In addition, he works closely with network executives to oversee overall news programming strategy at Telemundo’s stations.
Abud has held a wide range of senior leadership positions over the span of his impressive nearly 20-year media industry career. He has played a crucial role in the evolution of news and entertainment within the Hispanic television landscape.

Most recently, Abud served as President and General Manager of Telemundo Dallas KXTX-TV. During 2010, he served as interim General Manager of independent Spanish-language television station KWHY-TV in Los Angeles.

From 2002 to 2007, Abud served as Vice President and General Manager of Telemundo Los Angeles, which included oversight of Telemundo’s signature station KVEA. Prior to KVEA, Abud was president of Telemundo Cable, a group of cable networks made up of mun2 and Telemundo Internacional, the news and entertainment channel broadcast to Latin America, the U.S. and Canada.

In 1990, Abud was president of CBS Telenoticias and in 2000 he successfully re-launched the network as Telemundo Internacional, changing it from an all-news to a news and entertainment format, reaching more than 6 million subscribers. Abud has also held various top management positions including Chief Financial Officer of Mexico’s media company Grupo Medcom, Director of Investor Relations at Grupo Televisa and General Treasurer of Grupo ICA.

Abud currently serves on the boards of the Texas Association of Broadcasters, Junior Achievement of Dallas and the YWCA Foundation of Fort Worth.

Abud received a bachelor’s degree in finance and business administration from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and an MBA from Houston Baptist University.

Tim Boell

Group Head of Distribution

Asia TV

With 30 years of experience in the cable industry, Mr. Boell was most recently the Group Vice President, Content Distribution and Marketing at Viacom Media Networks where he secured distribution that served to successfully launch EPIX, a new multi platform digital network. Prior to Viacom, he spent 12 years at Sundance Channel, most recently as Senior Vice President, Sales and Affiliate Marketing. Earlier in his career, he worked at Showtime Networks in various affiliate sales roles within the northeast region.

Jorge Consuegra

Principal, Fearless Multicultural

The Fearless Group

Jorge Consuegra is a global business and marketing professional, with nearly 25 years of experience with Fortune 500 companies and marquee brands.

Jorge is the founder and principal of Fearless Multicultural, a data driven consultancy that enables companies to identify and capture growth associated with multicultural consumer segments. Fearless Multicultural is part of the Fearless Group, where our ambition is to deliver clients better, more effective advertising by eliminating fearful behavior and thinking in the decision making process.

Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez

EVP, Multicultural Markets & Engagement

AARP

Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez is the executive vice president of Multicultural Markets & Engagement at AARP. Lorraine has a distinguished career in nonprofit, government and corporate sectors that extends more than 30 years.

She was New York’s Secretary of State, the first Hispanic to serve in that role. Lorraine also served as vice president of Government and Public Affairs at Cablevision Systems Corporation.

Additionally, her work in the nonprofit sector has gained her national recognition. Lorraine was president of the Hispanic Federation, a nonprofit network of 90 Latino health and human service agencies, aiding more than 2 million Latinos annually.

Ed Gordon

Senior Director, Distribution & Audience Research

ESPN

For the past 13 years, Gordon has been in charge of ESPN’s Affiliate Research group—a group that works with ESPN’s Affiliate Sales department to distribute, promote, sell and market the ESPN assets and services to multichannel video distributors.

Additionally, Gordon oversees all Research support for ESPN Deportes—ESPN’s domestic Spanish language brand.

Prior to ESPN, Gordon worked for three years at FOX Sports Net in local Research, providing Ad Sales support for the owned and affiliated regional sports networks under the FOX Sports Net group.

Dr. Justin Ku

Co-Founder & Chairman

Blue Ocean Network

Dr. Justin Ku is co-founder and chairman of Blue Ocean Network (BON). He was among “The Ten Most Innovative Persons in China’s Media Industry in 2010″, rated by Stanchina, an influential NGO.

Before founding BON, Dr. Ku was founder and chairman of Skyarc Media Group, a New York based media company that invests in and manages media projects around the world. Prior to moving into the world of media, Dr. Ku enjoyed a successful ten-year career with Motorola in the U.S., where he worked in such diverse areas as telecommunications software development, wireless system design and implementation, intelligent network product management and world market portfolio management.

Along with management roles in his media companies, Dr. Ku is also a TV producer and host. He has created and hosted major TV shows in China such as the groundbreaking “Meet China” – the country’s first cross-border multilingual talk show.

Dr. Ku holds six degrees in diverse fields from leading universities in both the U.S. and China, including a Ph.D. in communications from Peking University, an M.A. in journalism from New York University, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and an MBA from University of Illinois at Chicago.

Ruben Mendiola

Vice President and General Manager, Multicultural Video Services

Comcast

Ruben Mendiola is the Vice President and General Manager of Multicultural Video Services for Comcast. In this position he is responsible for directing, designing and implementing Comcast’s multicultural video services strategy and collaborating with various Comcast divisions, regions and business unit partners to develop competitive product pricing, positioning and marketing strategies.

Prior to joining Comcast, Mendiola was General Manager of Latino Programming and Spanish Business Development for Dish Network. During his nine years at the company, he not only spearheaded and defined the company’s Spanish video content initiatives, but was also responsible for creating the DISH Latino division. Prior to DISH, he was Vice President of Programming and Operations at Fox Sports Latin America. He also served as Programming Director for Pay TV at Grupo Televisa where he was responsible for content negotiations for all Pay TV Systems of Televisa including Sky Entertainment Services and Cablevision.

Melvin Perez

President

MGM Networks Latin America, LLC

Melvin M. Perez has been President and Chief Executive Officer for MGM Networks Latin America LLC since May 2008. He joined the company in 1997 as Chief Financial Officer and later became the company’s Chief Operating Officer in 2003. He possesses 20 years of experience in the television industry.

As President, Mr. Perez oversees all areas of MGM Networks Latin America, which includes four Pay-TV channels distributed in over twenty countries throughout Latin America, Portugal, Africa and the United States.

Prior to working for MGM Networks Latin America, Mr. Perez worked as Director of Financial Operations for the Telemundo Network, where he supervised all financial functions for the national and international divisions. Simultaneously, he served as Business Manager and Assistant General Manager for WSCV-TV, Channel 51 in Miami, the local Telemundo affiliate.

David Saldarriaga

Director, Marketing & Sales

Charter Communications

David Saldarriaga, Director of Marketing & Sales for Charter Communications for the NW KMA region. He is directly responsible for all local residential sales and for the implementation and execution of national and local marketing campaigns and tactics. He is also overseeing all multicultural marketing, product and packaging the entire enterprise. Since his taking over this responsibility, David has launched a number of Hispanic initiatives including the addition of several new networks to the current Spanish language tier in various regions of the country as well as the introduction of PaqueTV, a bilingual (Spanish-English) package that combines popular channels in both languages to better serve the diversity of the Hispanic community, in other words, those homes that are Spanish-dominant, bilingual or English dominant.

David’s extensive background in the industry enables him to understand the dynamic of the business. After graduating from college in Colombia (South America) with an advertising degree, David moved to the United States and began his cable and telecommunications career at Jones Communications in Alexandria, Va. A few years later, he relocated to Florida to work with Time Warner Cable which then became Bright House Network. During his time there as Director of Field Marketing, he led the organization to launch Nuestros Canales , a Spanish language Tier and participated in several multicultural programs. After 9 years in Orlando, David accepted a position as the VP of Marketing and Sales for Cox Communications in Gainesville, FL, where he was responsible for all residential sales and marketing as well as MDU negotiations. In late 2009, David and his family relocated to Vancouver, WA, where he has been working at Charter.

Jaime Vasquez

VP, Consumer Marketing

Cricket Communications

Jaime is an International Marketer having worked in both the U.S. and Latin American markets with CPG (Food & Beverage), Internet, franchise retail sales operations, electronics and telecommunications experience. Jaime has over 22 years of proven experience with ARCO/ampm, PepsiCo (Pepsi Cola North America, Pepsi Bottling Group, Frito Lay North America, PepsiCo International), Univision Online, LG Electronics and Cricket Communications.

Jaime’s areas of expertise include Brand Strategy, New Product Development & Launches, New Business Start Ups, Sales Operations, Interactive Marketing, Franchise Sales Operations, Beverage and Food Marketing, Sales & Business Development, Advertising, Promotions, Field Marketing, Media Strategy, Merchandising and Pricing Strategy. Jaime is most proud of the multimillion and Billion dollar businesses and brands he helped create and reposition including Univision Online, Sierra Mist, Doritos, Pepsi, LG and Cricket Wireless. Many of the latter marketing campaigns were rewarded with Effies, Cannes Advertising Festival Nominations, Chairman’s Awards, President’s Awards, AMA Awards and most importantly the rewards at the register by consumers voting with their hard earned cash where the awards matter most.

Adriana Waterston

VP, Business Development & Marketing

Horowitz Associates

Adriana is a recognized expert on the U.S. Hispanic market. She is often quoted in the trade and consumer press and her articles on the topic have been published in media industry publications including Multichannel News. Adriana is often invited to speak at events and conferences such as AHAA (Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies), NAMIC (National Association of Multiethnicity in Communications), CTAM (Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing), the ARF (the Advertising Research Foundation) the OCTA (Oregon Cable and Telecommunications Association), and the Hispanic Television Summit, among others. Adriana has been named one of the industry’s “Most Influential Minorities in Cable” by Cablefax Magazine, and has received CTAM TAMI award for her work in multicultural marketing