Hispanic professionals to benefit from variety of topics at conference

A diverse group of industry and thought leaders will address a broad range of topics — from ”Leveraging Your Ethnicity” to ”Managing Your Money” — as they offer leading-edge strategies and advice about various issues at the fifth annual Hispanic Professionals’ Leadership Day (HPLD).

Scheduled for Friday, Aug. 2, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Rice Memorial Center, the event will focus on issues such as career advancement, entrepreneurship and money management.

With keynote speakers Julie Stav, host of the PBS show ”How To Fund Your Future” and best-selling author of books offering investment advice, and Deborah Rosado-Shaw, author, speaker and founder of a multimillion dollar wholesaler and importer of fashion accessories, the event is expected to draw more than 200 professionals and managers from various industries.

”We have a wide diversity of speakers and topics, all borne of ideas presented by Hispanic professional organizations,” said Diane Summers, director of operations and marketing, Rice University Executive Education. Speakers at the event hail from different backgrounds — media, law, technology, entrepreneurship, banking — and each has something unique to share about his or her area of expertise, she said.

The event, hosted by Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA), was launched in 1998, and since then more than 800 professionals and managers have converged to attend the conference, discussing critical trends and issues for excelling in the current multicultural, technical and global business environment.

”With this event, we are creating a forum for business professionals, community leaders and corporate sponsors to come together at one of the nation’s best universities to discuss issues critical to the success of Hispanics in business,” said Juan Padron, president of the NSHMBA