Board Of Directors

Deepa Donde

Writer, Independent Producer, AUSTIN, TX

Deepa Donde is an independent film, television, and radio producer based in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared on the following outlets: NPR, Huffington Post, PBS, BBC, CBS and NBC. In addition to her work with the Futuro Media Group, Deepa also serves on the board of The Austin Film Festival. She has in the past served on the advisory boards of Fusebox: Contemporary Multi-Disciplinary Art Festival, Youth Radio (NPR’s premier provider for youth orientated content), Girls Impact The World Film Festival, other social enterprise organizations, including The Dell Social Innovation Challenge (now VERB) as well as on the board of Ballet Austin.

She lives with her two delightful children, and her husband, Vinay Bhagat, an Austin entrepreneur who founded CONVIO, the leading software as a services platform for nonprofits. Deepa received her Bachelor of Arts Degree with Honors in Medieval History from Brown University. She is close to completing her first independent narrative feature film, PERIPHERY.

Theresa Barron-McKeagney

Associate Dean, College of Public Affairs and Community Service at the University of Nebraska

Dr. Barron-McKeagney’ areas of teaching at the university are human behavior and the social Environment; diversity (Latinos, American Indians, minority elderly); social welfare policy; institutional oppression; administration; and social welfare planning. Her scholarship interests include qualitative research and diverse populations, specifically Latinos. She has authored several articles in the area of mentoring with diverse populations. She received her Ph.D. in Community and Human Resources from Teacher’s College at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1993; her M.S.W. from the School of Social Work at The University of Nebraska Omaha in 1986; and her B.S.W. from the School of Social Work at the University of Iowa in 1981.

In addition to serving on the Futuro Media board she serves on many others in Nebraska and Iowa, including, The Nebraska Families Collaborative, The Iowa West Foundation (Executive Committee-Secretary/Treasurer), Alegent Creighton Health Foundation, and the Douglas County Re-entry Council. Married to Don McKeagney, Theresa loves to watch college football and basketball and playing with two grandsons, Eli and Xavier.

Phillip Schreiber

Partner, Holland & Knight

Based in Chicago, Phillip is experienced in employment discrimination and wage and hour class and collective action litigation before federal and state administrative agencies and federal and state courts. He is also experienced in issues relating to drug and alcohol testing, the WARN Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act, military leave, wrongful discharge, employee handbooks, employment contracts, covenants not to compete, separation agreements, unemployment compensation benefits claims and various other employment related matters. He also has expertise in traditional labor matters, including union elections, contract arbitration and proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board.

During his legal career, Phil has litigated a variety of complex commercial litigation matters. He also has gained significant experience counseling clients on a wide range of issues involving contract disputes and fraud claims.

Phil has appeared as a panelist on Chicago Tonight, a local television news program. He also has made numerous presentations to the Chicago Chapter of SHRM on a wide variety of employment law issues.

Alvin H. (Hal) Strelnick, M.D.

Dr. Hal Strelnick, Professor of Family and Social Medicine, is the director and founder of the Institute for Community and Collaborative Health (ICCH) and Hispanic Center of Excellence (HCOE) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Principal Investigator of the NIH-funded Bronx Center to Reduce and Eliminate Ethnic and Racial Health Disparities (Bronx CREED).

Since 1978, he has practiced clinical and social medicine in the Bronx and Yonkers. Dean Strelnick has dedicated his career to community and minority health and health disparities, leading New York State’s first and only Hispanic Center of Excellence since 2001.  He received his medical degree from Yale and completed his residency in family medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. On graduation he practiced at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Health Center in the South Bronx as a member of the National Health Service Corps.  In 1981 he joined the Einstein faculty.

Carmen Rita Wong

CEO and Founder of Malecon Productions, NEW YORK CITY

An author, speaker, consultant and media host, Carmen is the CEO and Founder of Malecon Productions. She is the former co-creator and host of the only national, daily personal finance television show, On the Money, on CNBC. A former editor at MONEY magazine, she spent nearly a decade as a national advice columnist read by millions, most recently at Good Housekeeping, and previously at Glamour, Latina, Essence, and Men’s Health. She has also contributed to The New York Times and O, the Oprah magazine, and is the author of two best-selling financial advice books, her most recent, The Real Cost of Living.

An entrepreneur and educator, Carmen was the co-founder and former President of an all-female financial planning firm, as well as an Assistant Industry Professor of behavioral economics at NYU Polytech’s graduate school of Finance and Risk Engineering.

Mariano Díaz

ENTREPRENEUR, FOOD INDUSTRY LEADER, NEW YORK, NY

Mariano Diaz is an independent entrepreneur and life-long leader in the food industry. For over ten years, Mariano served as the only Latino on the Board of Directors of the Food Industry Alliance. He was also the President of the National Supermarkets Association (NSA), which is the largest independently-owned supermarket association in the US, representing over 600 supermarkets in the tri-state area and throughout the eastern seaboard. Over the past forty years, Mariano has acquired and developed numerous supermarket, commercial and real estate properties in New York, New Jersey and Florida. He has also mentored his own employees, some of whom have opened supermarkets of their own.      In 1992, Mariano was featured in a New York Times article, “Thriving Where Others Won’t Go.” He was also recognized by the Boy Scouts of East Harlem,   the Catholic Institute of the Food Industry, and many other charitable and community-based organizations, for his mentoring and personal philanthropy.

 

Mariano graduated Cum Laude from Lehman College in 1978. He was later accepted to the Master’s program at George Washington University to study International Relations. He is fluent in five languages, and he had to use all of them, in raising his four children.

 

Priscilla Rojas

Associate Director of Internal Audit at Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Priscilla is the Associate Director of Internal Audit at Vertex Pharmaceuticals.  She has 15+ years of international audit and consulting experience with numerous Fortune 500 companies, including Deloitte, Time Warner, State Street, and John Hancock.  Her professional endeavors have helped her gain hands-on experience working in over a dozen countries, including India, Australia, Japan and Ireland.

Priscilla holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from DePaul University and is a licensed Certified Internal Auditor (CIA®) and Project Management Professional (PMP®).  

She commits her passion and leadership to organizations promoting the advancement of people of color, women and the arts.  Nominated by Mayor Walsh, Priscilla serves as the Vice Chair of the Boston Planning & Development Agency Board responsible for voting on all final determinations and agreements at the agency in order to guide physical, social, and economic change in Boston’s neighborhoods.

Priscilla is also a member of the Boston Educational Development Fund board, Boston Cultural Council board and a long-time member of the Association of Latino Professionals for America and a sister of Sigma Lambda Gamma, the nation’s largest Latina-based sorority with multicultural membership.

In addition, she was a winner of the 2016 Boston’s Extraordinary Women Campaign, highlighting women that do extraordinary work within the Boston community.

Priscilla, a native of Aurora, IL, resides with her husband in Boston’s Leather District.

Jonathan Garcia

Senior Director, Strategic Partnerships and External Affairs at Portland Public Schools

Jonathan Garcia is the son of undocumented Mexican immigrants who came to the US in search of the American Dream—the opportunity to reach our family’s greatest potential through education. It was his parents’ dream that inspired Jonathan to become the first in his family to complete high school with an International Baccalaureate Diploma and graduate with a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree from Azusa Pacific University.

Jonathan’s vision of building an education system that ensures all children succeed, like he did, comes from his experience of having educators and mentors support him to lead with strong voice around equity and justice. As a high school senior, Jonathan organized a campaign to demand San Bernardino politicians invest in education and led major voter registration efforts—earning him a 30 Under 30 Award by then Assemblywoman Wilma Carter. It was these experiences that steered him to run for Rialto School Board at age 19, championing student-centered policies.

Upon completing college, Jonathan organized youth to advance equity-focused policies in Santa Ana, CA through The California Endowment Building Healthy Communities Initiative and supported 500 first-generation students annually to persist through college in Los Angeles. He then joined San Francisco’s Public School District, leading a nationally-recognized effort to build networks of business and philanthropic leaders to invest in the public school system to create 21st century opportunities for students to thrive. This effort resulted in over $20 million of private investments. Jonathan would go on to establish Spark SF Public Schools, SFUSD’s Foundation, which served as the vehicle for Jonathan and his team to rally the city around education and children, in partnership with the late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Board of Education and then-Superintendent Richard Carranza.

Jonathan now leads similar efforts for Portland Public Schools under the direction of Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero—building strategic initiatives that strengthen and leverage the generosity of business and philanthropy.

Jonathan lends his strategic and fund development lens to the Board of Directors of Arte Publico Press—the nation’s largest publisher of literature by US Latino authors—the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers Foundation and most recent, the Board of Futuro Media Group. He was named one of 2018 Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Education.

Alicia Bassuk

Founder/President, Ubica Leadership Strategy

Alicia Bassuk is a leadership & performance advisor to individuals and teams internationally. Bassuk provides clients guidance in maximizing individual effectiveness, optimizing team cohesion, and shifting cultures. Clients include the NBA, McKinsey & Company, Christie’s, United Nations, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Sienna Capital, the MIT Media Lab, presidential appointees, world class artists and executives in the sports and entertainment sectors. Bassuk is an online contributor to the Harvard Business Review, Oprah Magazine, HuffPost, and CNN. She was named as one of the Top 100 Leadership Speakers of 2017 by Inc. Magazine’s LEADX.

Bassuk holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing from University of Chicago Booth Business School where she was a Chicago Business Fellow and conducted research at the Center for the Study of Urban Inequality. She also holds a B.A. in Political Science from Wesleyan University where she led the Latino student group and played lacrosse. Bassuk is certified in mediation through Northwestern University School of Law.

Bassuk holds dual citizenship (Argentina), speaks Spanish and has lived in Buenos Aires, Tel Aviv, Boulder and Honolulu. She is the President of the University of Chicago Latino Alumni Board, is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago, and serves on the Board of Harlem based Futuro Media Group.