President's Welcome

Download our 2011 annual report.

Last year was another rewarding and active year at Americas Society and Council of the Americas. We continued to build ourreputation as a hemispheric organization, offering a diverse selection of programs to engage our constituents and promote dialogue on some of the most important issues across the Americas.

Over the year, we organized and led 222 programs in New York, Washington DC, Miami, and throughout Latin America. We expanded our signature Latin American Cities series through activities in Buenos Aires, Bogota, Lima, Mexico City, Panama City, San Jose, Santiago, and São Paulo. Our working groups on Hispanic integration and immigration, social inclusion, energy, and Cuba continue to offer a platform for experts and stakeholders to dialogue, and we have taken them to various cities in the United States and Latin American in order to create a truly hemispheric discourse. We also increased our new media coverage to reach a global community interested in Latin America. For the first time, we webcast all of our Latin American Cities conferences and offered live blog and Twitter coverage in almost every city. Our Washington Conference was a major success, providing a platform for policy leaders—including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, and Mexican President Felipe Calderón—to discuss hemispheric integration.

We continued to expand our policy agenda. Our website, www.as-coa.org, broadened its coverage of major issues affecting the Americas through increased analysis, video interviews, and multimedia content. We extended our outreach to new constituents through the launch of our new Livestream channel, which received over 10,000 views in the second half of 2011 alone. Our policy journal Americas Quarterly steadily increased readership, and provided a critical understanding and fresh perspectives on key regional issues, including free trade and market access, Brazil and the changing hemisphere, sports, and impact investing.

2011 was an extraordinary year for Americas Society’s cultural activities. Our gallery hosted three distinct exhibitions, including Antonio Manuel: I Want to Act, Not Represent!, the artist’s first solo show in the United States. We produced 28 music programs, increasing our audience in New York and Miami. Our Literature series featured prominent authors, playwrights, and poets, and an important component of our Spring culture season focused on Cuba, with our partnership and participation in the ¡Sí Cuba! festival and with our Spring edition of Review: Literature and Artsof the Americas, “Cuba, Inside and Out.”

Americas Society’s Spring Party honored Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez; C. Robert Henrikson, chairman of the Board of MetLife Inc.; and Andrónico Luksic, Chilean entrepreneur and vice chairman of Banco de Chile for their outstanding contributions throughout the Americas.

2011 presented many exciting opportunities and challenges. I want to thank my team for their personal dedication, enthusiasm, and energy. I also want to thank the Americas Society and Council of the Americas Boards of Directors for their time, unwavering support, and confidence. Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank all of you for your ongoing commitment to our mission; we could not do any of this without you.

Susan L. Segal
President and CEO