Some galas celebrate a single night. This one celebrated lifetimes. On November 2, the Ziff Ballet Opera House at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center filled for the Latina Powerhouse 100 gala, presented by ¡HOLA! Américas. The evening honored Latin women whose talent, leadership, and influence are reshaping industries across the map.
© Kike FloresTwo former Miss Universe titleholders, Dayanara Torres and Andrea Meza, hosted the night alongside the ever-charismatic Venezuelan TV personality Boris Izaguirre. The honorees included visionary entrepreneurs, artists who’ve conquered international stages, scientists driving innovation, and community leaders changing lives through sheer commitment. The program also made a larger point: Latina representation matters in the rooms where power and creativity live, and Hispanic women’s talent has become a force that inspires, transforms, and leaves its mark worldwide.
The night was full of pride, and it carried a clear message for the generations still dreaming big: the future gets built by women who make a difference. These are the five women who received the evening’s special recognitions.
Lele Pons: Entertainment Vanguard Award
© Kike FloresToday, Lele Pons is a mother, the host of her own podcast and one of the most candid voices on mental health in the entertainment world. Latina Powerhouse honored her with the Entertainment Vanguard Award for something harder than going viral: she has stayed true to herself.
She got there early. She was the first person to reach one billion plays on Vine, at a time when most people didn’t yet know what a content creator was.
Her story starts in Caracas, where Eleonora Pons Maronese was born on June 25, 1996, to pediatrician Anna Maronese and architect Luis Pons. She was 5 when the family moved to Miami. She grew up there between two languages and graduated from Miami Country Day School in 2015. Latin music runs in the family, too: Puerto Rican superstar Chayanne is married to one of her aunts.
As her fan base grew around her social media videos, she co-wrote a book, Surviving High School, with Melissa de la Cruz. Around then, she realized her audience didn’t just want to laugh with her. They wanted to know her. She has since branched into music and television while chasing her dreams, and she’s never stepped away from social media. There, she still keeps followers updated on her personal life and posts videos with her trademark sense of humor.
Silvia Tcherassi: Fashion Legacy Award
© Kike FloresTo understand the designer, you have to go back to the woman who never planned on becoming one. Silvia Tcherassi was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, and trained in interior design. In 1987, her search for new ways to express herself led her to fashion. That first education wasn’t a detour, as it turned out. It became the foundation of her design language.
“En mi carrera aprendí el lenguaje del color, la importancia de la construcción, el respeto a los materiales, el arte del volumen,” she has said. (“In my career I learned the language of color, the importance of construction, respect for materials, the art of volume.”)
You can see it in every collection: almost sculptural silhouettes, clean lines that work with the body instead of imposing on it, carefully calculated layering and color that never shouts. It glows instead, like coastal light at sunset.
Nearly four decades after trading floor plans for sewing patterns, Tcherassi is living the most symbolic year of her career as Colombia’s ambassador of fashion. She’s been honored in Madrid and chosen by a first lady and by Serena Williams. Her daughter, Sofía, is ready to write the house’s next chapter.
Rita Ferro: Legacy of Excellence Award
© Kike FloresBehind the boardrooms, the stages and the client events, there’s a side of Rita Ferro most people would never guess. “Soy introvertida,” she confesses. “Muy introvertida. Soy muy tímida.” (“I’m an introvert. Very introverted. I’m very shy.”)
That’s not what you’d expect from one of the most powerful women in media. As president of Global Advertising at The Walt Disney Company, Ferro runs the global ad business for the company’s biggest brands and platforms, including ABC, Hulu, Disney+, ESPN, Marvel and Star Wars.
Talking about your own legacy can feel intimidating, but Ferro’s answer is wonderfully simple. She thinks about the people she’s worked with. “Espero que digan: ‘Wow, fue una gran jefa. Me ayudó a aprender muchísimo y me dio mucha libertad para hacerlo’.” (“I hope they say: ‘Wow, she was a great boss. She helped me learn so much and gave me a lot of freedom to do it.’”)
That freedom matters to her. “Quiero contratar a gente extraordinaria, dejar que hagan lo que tengan que hacer y no estar metida en todo lo que hacen cada día,” she explains. “Esa es la mejor parte de este trabajo.” (“I want to hire extraordinary people, let them do what they need to do and not be involved in everything they do every day. That’s the best part of this job.”)
Celia Sredni de Birbragher: Cultural Vanguard Award
© Kike FloresToday, Latin American art has a far bigger presence in museums, collections and international fairs than it did when Celia Sredni de Birbragher started out. No single person or publication could claim that shift. It came from the work of many artists and of the people who spent decades insisting their work mattered. Few have insisted longer than Birbragher, who has spent half a century at the helm of ArtNexus, carrying Latin American art far beyond its borders.
She launched the magazine in Bogotá in 1976 as Arte en Colombia. Its first goal was to document what was happening in Colombian art. Then readers arrived from Venezuela, Argentina and Mexico, and the publication began circulating in places where specialized coverage of Colombian art had been hard to find. In 1997, she founded the Fundación ArtNexus, a Bogotá-based nonprofit. Its projects include the ArtNexus Documentation Center, which gathers materials for the study of Latin American art.
When the internet began upending publishing, the magazine had to adapt. In 2000, her daughter Susanne led the development of its digital platform. It was a new era for a print-first publication, and also a way to reach readers who could never easily get a copy.
Long before any of that, Birbragher was a student with a pull toward images. Born in Bogotá, she attended the Liceo Francés Louis Pasteur and later Alma College, a girls’ boarding school in Ontario, Canada. She began studying philosophy and literature at the Universidad de los Andes but soon switched to fine arts. She wanted to work with images and experiment with materials. After marrying León Birbragher, she moved to Chicago. There she studied printmaking, ceramics and drawing at the University of Chicago and took painting courses at the Art Institute. Back in Bogotá, she returned to her university studies while balancing her artistic training with motherhood.
Jean Shafiroff: Latina de Corazón Award
© Kike FloresAsk Jean Shafiroff what keeps her going on hard days, and she won’t talk about awards. She talks about the enormous need in the world and her commitment to women, underserved communities, health, animals, and equality. “Ser útil a la sociedad da propósito y dirección a mi trabajo,” she has said. (“Being useful to society gives purpose and direction to my work.”)
That conviction is why New York’s so-called “first lady of philanthropy” received the Latina de Corazón Award, honoring four decades of dedication to the Hispanic community.
She was born Jean Lutri and grew up in the Long Island suburbs. Her father, Placido Lutri, chaired the music department and directed the school bands for the Levittown district. Her mother, Rose, was a painter who had worked as a textile designer before devoting herself to family. Shafiroff had twelve years of Catholic schooling, with nuns who insisted on reaching out to those who had less. She graduated from Holy Trinity Diocesan High School in Hicksville in 1972. That early lesson, to give even when there isn’t much to spare, would become the center of her thinking decades later.
Before she became one of Manhattan’s most famous hostesses, she wore a white coat. She studied physical therapy at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and worked at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York. Then she made a turn few could have predicted. She earned an MBA in finance from Columbia Business School and spent time on Wall Street in public finance and private partnerships, including the corporate finance department of investment bank L.F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin.
Her influence also lives in what she passes on to younger generations. Her book, her TV show, and her social media all repeat the same idea with the patience of a good teacher, perhaps her father’s legacy: giving is a way of building your own life.
