Matias DeDovitiis

PRESIDENT

Born in Uruguay, Matias has been a very active member of Spanish-speaking community in the last 10 years. He helped to start and was President of the Organization of Latin American Students (OLAS) at the University of Toronto. This student group is now located in 5 campuses across Ontario. He was a founding member and President of Mosaico 21, a Latino culture magazine, for 4 years. Matias is currently the Executive Director for the DUKE Heights BIA and is a board member of a number of other community organizations.

Alicia Galarza

VICE-PRESIDENT

Ecuadorian-born Alicia Galarza is a model of volunteer and professional service to the Hispanic Community. Thanks to her volunteer role through non-profit organizations she helps promote spaces for Latin American immigrants and for the preservation of the Latin American culture in Canada ("Festival de la Palabra y de la Imagen").

Chris Rugel

TREASURER

Chris has been working with the professional community, charitable foundations, pensions and municipalities, and select institutions, helping them to achieve their capital preservation objectives since 1994. Leveraging the expertise gained as a former fixed income trader in the institutional bond market, he has developed specialized fixed income portfolios for clients to help them achieve their goals. In low interest rate environment, maximizing the yield portfolios is paramount for low-risk institutional clients including foundations and municipalities, Chris has worked with numerous and diverse clients to develop their goals and priorities

Julián Andrés Carvajal

BOARD MEMBER AT LARGE

Julián Carvajal (he/him) is an award winner multifaceted, colourful and vibrant queer Latinx Colombian Canadian Arts Manager/Producer with over 20 years of experience managing and delivering arts festivals and cultural events. He has worked across the city and internationally leading large high-level events, producing shows, developing marketing concepts and has significant experience budgeting, managing staff, and building a strong community and media relations across cultural boundaries. He worked for over 5 years at Art Starts as a Special Projects Manager. He is the Event Producer of the largest PanAmerican Food and Music Festival in Canada. Julián is a mentor in residence at the Neighbourhood Arts Network while working at North York Arts and the producer of In My Element(s) Symposia and Partnership Curator with the City of Toronto.

Rebeca Batres

BOARD MEMBER AT LARGE

Rebeca Batres is originally from Mexico and immigrated to Canada 22 years ago. She is fully trilingual (English, French and Spanish) and studied her MA in International Development at Carleton University, Ottawa. She joined TD Bank 5 years ago and her current role is Manager, Canadian Banking - IVR within the North American Contact Centre Team.

Prior to TD, she built a successful career with different governmental, non-governmental and private organizations including the Representative Office of Mexico's Development Bank (Bancomext) in Montreal – the NAFTA Office of Mexico in Canada, the Forum of Federations, the City of Ottawa and Scotiabank.

She was a proud recipient of the MATCH Award for International Understanding in recognition of her work with women at the community level in Mexico and for the last 11 years she has followed her goal of advocating for diversity and inclusion at the corporate level: First within Scotiabank (as a Chair of one of its two most important Employee Resource Groups, the Hispanic Group) and now as part of the Executive Team of Latinos in Leadership within TD Bank as a Community Outreach Co-Lead.

Parallel to her career in the financial industry, she is a single mother with two boys, loves dancing and fitness.