Maria Lourdes Teran is vice president of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas and head of the AS/COA Miami office. With over 25 years of experience working with Latin America, she leads business-relevant public policy programs in Miami engaging public- and private-sector leaders, NGOs, foundations, and academics on a range of business and policy issues as well as C-level leadership forums for CEOs and CFOs of major multilatinas and multinational companies across the Western Hemisphere.

Indiana Trejos holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations and economics from Tufts University and a master’s degree in political economy from the University of Essex, where she received a scholarship from the UK government. Prior to becoming deputy minister of foreign trade, Trejos developed an extensive career in public service. At the Ministry of Foreign Trade, she served as coordinator for North America and inclusive trade, coordinator for world trade organization affairs, advisor on trade facilitation, and negotiator for market access and textiles.

Peter J. Johnson served as a political, economic, and philanthropic advisor to brothers John D. Rockefeller 3rd, Laurance Rockefeller, and Americas Society/Council of the Americas founder David Rockefeller for over four decades. Johnson is a co-author of The Rockefeller Century (Scribner, 1988) and The Rockefeller Conscience (Scribner, 1991), among other works.

Image credit: Americas Society.

Sylvia Palacios Whitman (b. Osorno, Chile, 1941) is a visual and performance artist who has been experimenting with movement and contemporary dance since moving to New York in the early 1960s. She became an integral figure of the experimental downtown arts scene in 1970s New York, having collaborated with many U.S. and international artists.

La Banda Chuska merges the sounds of retro Peruvian cumbia and psychedelic chicha with 1960s Latin American and Middle Eastern surf rock. Born from the experimentalism and chaos of New York City, La Banda Chuska amplifies their diverse cultural backgrounds of Peru, Argentina, Puerto Rico, and various corners of the United States.

Julio Figueroa is the head of Citi in Latin America. Mr. Figueroa joined Citi in 1994 in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) division. Since then, he had several roles within CIB in Buenos Aires (1994-2001), Miami (2001- 2004) and New York (2004-2010). In 2010, he returned to Argentina as CIB head. In 2014, he was appointed Citi chief country officer (CCO) in Peru. He took the role of Argentina CCO in 2016. From 2020 until his recent appointment as head of Latin America in October 2023, Mr.

Shu Nyatta is the co-founder and managing partner of Bicycle Capital, a new firm with $0.5B of capital, focused on investments in growth-stage technology companies in Latin America. From March 2015 until April 2022, Shu served in multiple senior investment roles at SoftBank Vision Fund and SoftBank Group International.

María Luisa Hayem Brevé has over 20 years of experience in trade, financial inclusion, and economic development. She began her career in 2003 as counselor of the Permanent Mission of El Salvador to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Guillermo Monroy has more than 25 years of experience in sustainability, compliance, risk management, communications, human resources, and public relations. He has worked in a range of industries, including cement, construction, mining, agrochemicals, energy, and healthcare, as well as in government.

He is currently the corporate citizenship manager at Progreso, overseeing public relations, corporate communications, and sustainability.

Guillermo Garza Martínez is currently the chief public affairs, communications and sustainability officer of Arca Continental, one of the most important bottlers of the Coca-Cola System worldwide, with almost 100 years in operation, and the only Latin American bottler operating in the US.