2022 Symposium

Bertha Coombs

Bertha Coombs is a reporter for CNBC, covering financial markets, business news stories and health care throughout the business day.

Her health care coverage has focused on health care service companies, including health insurers, hospitals and pharmacies, as well as the growing impact of digital health technology on the health care industry, ranging from the explosion of telehealth in the wake of the Covid pandemic to the companies trying to change the way primary care is delivered.

In nearly two decades at CNBC, she has also covered technology firms from the Nasdaq Marketsite, the energy markets from the former floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange, as well as reported on the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis and issues such as the growing impact of Latinos in the U.S. economy and the push to improve health equity in the wake of social unrest in 2020.

Before joining CNBC, Coombs was a reporter and anchor for the pioneering streaming business network, Yahoo Finance Vision. Prior, she served as a reporter for ABC News One, substitute anchor for “World News Now” and “World News This Morning,” following local news reporting jobs in New York, Miami and Hartford.

Coombs is a graduate of Yale University and was awarded the Leo Beranek Reporter Training Fellowship at WCVB-TV in Boston. Born in Havana, Cuba, she speaks fluent Spanish.

Nely Galán

Latina media dynamo and women’s empowerment advocate Nely Galán, dubbed the “Tropical Tycoon” by The New York Times Magazine, is one of the entertainment industry’s savviest firebrand talents. An immigrant and self-made media mogul, Galán was the first Latina President of Entertainment for a U.S. television network, Telemundo. She is an Emmy Award-winning producer of over 700 episodes of television in Spanish and English including the FOX hit reality series, The Swan, which she produced through her multi-media company Galán Entertainment. Her company also launched over 10 television channels abroad for companies like HBO, ESPN, FOX, MGM and Sony.

After becoming self-made on her own terms, Galán took a mid -career sabbatical, completing a masters and doctorate Clinical Psychology, where she focused on the  “Psychology of Money”, in multicultural communities. She then authored The New York Times bestselling book SELF MADE, Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way ( 2016) Random House, which was published in English, Spanish and Mandarin. Galán wrote the book as a manifesto to ignite the SELF MADE movement, uniting all women on a quest for an economic future they can control.

Since then, Galán has founded The Adelante Movement non-profit, to empower and train Latina and other multicultural women both economically as well as entrepreneurially. Her digital platform, BecomingSelfMade.com reaches over 1 million women monthly and hosts content in financial literacy and Self-Made stories of women of color as well as virtual content and webinars. The platform offers over 300 hours of content to small business owners of color for free.

During this pandemic, Galán has been producing webinars educating small business owners of color. In doing so, she has trained many on how to properly fill out forms for Federal and State Loans and grants, helped compile their financial paperwork, and connected them with banks and Fin-tech partners. She has trained over 1 million small business owners of color in entrepreneurship in person and online, working with SBA, all the chambers of commerce (Black, Latino , Asian,) and all the non-profits and social justice groups, creating original content and hosting webinars teaching women and families how to save their businesses and get the PPP and EIDL loans.

Galán is a sought-after speaker – just during these last 5 years, she has spoken in over 500 cities advocating or small business owners of color. She has become an expert in virtual content as a way to scale teaching financial literacy and empowerment in diverse communities. In China, her book tour resulted in the selling of 2.1 million books. She has also spoken at The United Nations, The United States of Women, major corporations (Coca-Cola, American Express, J.P Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Walmart, Dell) and at tech companies (Google, Facebook, eBay, Uber). Furthermore, Galán’s speeches have inspired thousands of students across the United States as she has spoken at many universities including Harvard, Stanford, Princeton,  USC, UCLA, University of Arizona, University of Arkansas, Babson, Bryant, Simmons, and Santa Monica Community College.

Galán is an Emeritus board member of the Smithsonian Institute. She currently serves on the board of directors of The Hispanic Scholarship Fund ( since 2008). She is also on the advisory board of The Aspen Institute, and on the corporate side has been an advisory board member of Coca-Cola’s Hispanic Council since 2008. Her next book, to be published in 2023, Don’t Buy Shoes Buy Buildings!, will inform those who currently work for others how to invest in order to “ make money while we sleep” and become Self Made.

Dhalma-Llanos Figueroa

Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York City. She is a product of the Puerto Rican communities on the island and in the South Bronx. She attended the New York City public school system and received her academic degrees from SUNY at Buffalo and CUNY Queens College. As a child, she was sent to live with her grandparents in Puerto Rico where she was introduced to the culture of rural Puerto Rico, including the storytelling that came naturally to the women in her family, especially the older women. Much of her work is based on her experiences during this time.

The hardcover edition of Daughters of the Stone was shortlisted as a 2010 Finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. In 2020, the self-published paperback edition won the 16th Annual National Indie Excellence® Awards for Multicultural Fiction. Dahlma was one of the awardees of the 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Fiction, the 2021 City Artists Corps grant awards, and the 2021 Letras Boricuas Fellowship/Mellon Foundation Award. Dahlma’s short stories have appeared in various anthologies and literary journals throughout the United States, Africa, and Brazil

Marilyn Alverio

Having grown up in an urban neighborhood, Marilyn learned early on about the importance of giving back to the community. Her parents migrated to the U.S. from Puerto Rico in the early 1950s and instilled the importance of “la Familia,” our culture, language, and “La Communidad.” She earned a B.A from the University of Conn. in Storrs, CT and an M.B.A. from the University of Phoenix. Marilyn has worked in the corporate arena for more than twenty years where she has held numerous management positions within the airline, pharmaceutical, education, financial, and health insurance industries.

She is the creator and producer of the Latinas and Power Symposium® (LPS), which is achieving national recognition. The annual one-day inspirational and professional development platform is designed for the Latina on the go.

Bertha Coombs

Bertha Coombs is a reporter for CNBC, covering financial markets, business news stories and health care throughout the business day.

Her health care coverage has focused on health care service companies, including health insurers, hospitals and pharmacies, as well as the growing impact of digital health technology on the health care industry, ranging from the explosion of telehealth in the wake of the Covid pandemic to the companies trying to change the way primary care is delivered.

In nearly two decades at CNBC, she has also covered technology firms from the Nasdaq Marketsite, the energy markets from the former floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange, as well as reported on the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis and issues such as the growing impact of Latinos in the U.S. economy and the push to improve health equity in the wake of social unrest in 2020.

Before joining CNBC, Coombs was a reporter and anchor for the pioneering streaming business network, Yahoo Finance Vision. Prior, she served as a reporter for ABC News One, substitute anchor for “World News Now” and “World News This Morning,” following local news reporting jobs in New York, Miami and Hartford.

Coombs is a graduate of Yale University and was awarded the Leo Beranek Reporter Training Fellowship at WCVB-TV in Boston. Born in Havana, Cuba, she speaks fluent Spanish.

Dr. Elsa Núñez

In August 2021, Dr. Elsa M. Núñez began her 16th year as the president of Eastern Connecticut State University.  She came to the University in 2006 following more than 20 years as a senior administrator at such institutions as City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Maine System.
Dr. Núñez has been a tenured faculty member of English at Ramapo State College, the College of Staten Island (CUNY), and Lehman College (CUNY). She also holds a faculty position as Professor of English at Eastern.
Author of two books “Pursuing Diversity” (1992) and “Hanging Out and Hanging On: From the Projects to the Campus” (2014), Dr. Núñez also has published numerous articles on language acquisition, diversity and other education issues.
Dr. Núñez has firmly established Eastern’s reputation as Connecticut’s only public liberal arts university.  Academic enhancements range from an increase in full-time faculty positions to the development of new majors. Under Dr. Núñez’s leadership, Eastern is ranked by U.S. News and World Report as the top public New England regional university in the North three years in a row, as well as the #1 public regional university in New England for “Best Value”; is recognized by the Princeton Review as a “Best College” in the Northeast; and has been named a U.S. Green College for 11 years in a row.
Dr. Núñez received her B.A. from Montclair State College, her M.A. from Fairleigh Dickinson University and her doctorate from Rutgers University.

Diana Pagano

Diana Pagano is the VP Sales & People Operations at Interpreters and Translators Inc, a rapidly growing multimillion dollar company based in Glastonbury, CT and Founder & CEO of DP International, LLC. She has founded the ‘Make Things Happen’ movement and is an action oriented inspirational speaker and author focussed on influencing and impacting the culture of growth mindset to achieve success. She attributes her own success to her deep understanding of human behavior and is passionate about influencing the culture of growth mindset to inspire others to achieve their goals and to live a fulfilled life. Through her ongoing initiatives she shows her audience tangible tools and techniques to achieve the results they want. 

Prior to moving to Connecticut, Diana lived in Scottsdale, Arizona where she built a successful career in Real Estate exceeding 15 million in sales annually and has taken home over 7 awards from RE/MAX International. 

Currently, Diana also serves as an advisory board member at Bay Path, all-women’s university in Massachusetts and Board of Education representative as she continues to stay active in her community initiatives. She enjoys tennis and spending time with her four children and husband.

Marilyn Alverio

Having grown up in an urban neighborhood, Marilyn learned early on about the importance of giving back to the community. Her parents migrated to the U.S. from Puerto Rico in the early 1950s and instilled the importance of “la Familia,” our culture, language, and “La Communidad.” She earned a B.A from the University of Conn. in Storrs, CT and an M.B.A. from the University of Phoenix. Marilyn has worked in the corporate arena for more than twenty years where she has held numerous management positions within the airline, pharmaceutical, education, financial, and health insurance industries.

She is the creator and producer of the Latinas and Power Symposium® (LPS), which is achieving national recognition. The annual one-day inspirational and professional development platform is designed for the Latina on the go.

Yvette Peña

Yvette Peña is a lifelong advocate for ethnic communities and takes pride in giving back and providing opportunities to develop communities in meaningful ways. It’s in her DNA. As an accomplished, award-winning marketer and community advocate with over 20 years of experience specializing in multicultural and general audience initiatives, she has put her heart where her work is. Currently, as Vice President of Audience Strategy at AARP, she leads the Hispanic/Latino audience strategy nationwide and most recently the Disabilities segment. She has championed innovation by leveraging digital, social and mobile platforms to drive engagements with the 50+ Latinos and their families. In this role, she serves as the national voice for AARP’s thought leadership in the Latino community through targeted campaigns and partnerships with multicultural organizations to drive AARP’s social impact agenda. She develops and manages relevant offerings and programs for AARP’s members and prospects, always with the goal of increasing brand affinity and engagement to better serve diverse communities.

Prior to her work with AARP, Yvette established a strong track record for successfully building brands with Latino markets, such as Sports Authority and Walgreens; as the first Director of Multicultural Marketing; also, as a Brand Manager at Sears and an Account Director at Young and Rubicam/The Bravo Group.

Public service has been a priority throughout her impactful career, always making public service, mentoring and championing diversity efforts in the community a priority. Earlier roles in her career include Chair of the City of Chicago Commission on Human Relations Latino Advisory Council, elected to participate in the Sears Chairman’s Diversity Council; she was also appointed as Vice-Chair to the Board of Directors for the Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino and is an Advisory Council Member for the American Latino Veterans Association (ALVA). She is an active Volunteer for Wish of a Lifetime.

She’s been honored many times, with different distinctions, the latest, the 2021 AL DÍA Archetype: recipient of the 2021 Ambassador Manuel Torres Award in the corporate category. Other awards include: 2021 EFFIE AARP COVID-19 Response Campaign, 2020 Silver Stevie Award – Women in Business for Female Innovator of the Year in Non-Profit category; Powerful Latinas Award; Mujeres Destacadas 2019 Award from El Diario NY Newspaper, 2019 Broadcasting/Cable & Multichannel News – Corporate Leadership Hispanic TV Video Award, 2019 EFFIE AARP Hispanic Brand Campaign; among other industry recognitions.

A native New Yorker, she is a proud Afro-Latina of Dominican roots and cherishes her time with her family and lifelong friends. Her life experiences have enabled her to do the ‘heartwork’ that impacts lives in a positive way. She currently resides between Washington, D.C. and Chicago with her husband, Lazaro.