20 under 40

Gretchen Colón, Senior VP of Advertising, Sales and Business Development for Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) Latin America, Age: 38
If you have a television in Latin America, odds are the hand of Gretchen Colón has touched you. She handles all marketing for CNN International, CNN en Español, TNT, TCM, Cartoon Network, HTV, Infinito and Fashion TV. Colón speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French fluently. That comes in handy when she is directing her staff in Miami, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Mexico City and Sao Paulo. Based in Atlanta, Colón has spent the last 13 years with Turner and is currently a fellow with the Betsy Magness Leadership Institute which helps elevate women leaders in the cable and telecommunications industry.

Angelo Milli, Venezuelan film score composer, Age: 34
A native of Maracaibo, Venezuela, Angelo Milli is an award-winning film composer who received his degree in film scoring from Berklee College of Music in Boston. Milli started writing original music for feature films in 2004. Since then he has written original scores for 10 feature films. His most recent credits include: Gabrielle Muccino’s Seven Pounds staring Will Smith, Ricardo de Montreuil’s Mancora, Simon Brand’s Paraiso Travel. In 2009 Milli wrote the original score to Anton Chekhov’s The Duel, a film based on the play by the same name set in Russia in the beginning of the 1900s.

Jorge Conde, Co-Founder and CEO, Knome, Inc., Age: 32
Unlike his brother Cesar, Jorge Conde has spent his entire professional life in one field: Biotechnology. In that landscape he has achieved an extensive acumen in both technology and business. He has an MBA from Harvard, a joint MS from Harvard and MIT, and has jumped from finance to development then marketing in his career. Conde now heads one of the most innovative companies in the nation. Knome Inc. specializes in decoding the individual genetic sequences of its customers, in the process detecting possible diseases and cures.

Julissa Reynoso, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central America and the Caribbean in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Age: 35
Reynoso joined the State Department in November and has helped shape U.S. policy on such important issues as Haiti’s devastating earthquake and the Honduras political stand-off following a military coup. Her specialty is law, having practiced at the international law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and clerked for the Federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain, both in New York City - Reynoso’s hometown. She has also worked in the accountability office of New York City’s education department, and has earned degrees at the world’s top universities; a bachelors from Harvard, a masters from Cambridge in the U.K., and a doctorate in law from Columbia.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Music, Lyrics and Original Concept, In the Heights, Age: 30
Miranda has received a litany of awards the last couple of years for writing and performing in the breakthrough musical In the Heights. In 2009 he won a Grammy for best musical show, and in 2008 it was a Tony Award for best musical and best original score. The list goes on and on back to 2007. Miranda wrote the first version of In the Heights while studying at Wesleyan University and now is turning the musical into a movie, where he will once again play the main character Usnavi.

Julian Castro, Mayor, City of San Antonio, TX, Age: 35
Elected in May 2009, Castro is the youngest mayor of the top 50 American cities. He came close in 2005, winning a majority of the mayoral votes but losing in a subsequent run-off. Castro got a quick start at politics when he was elected to the city council at age 26, the youngest ever elected in San Antonio history. He is a Democrat who has had to focus on jobs creation in his first term as the national economy nose-dived. Castro has an identical twin brother, Joaquin, who is a state representative. Both attended Stanford as undergraduates, went on to Harvard Law School, and then started a law firm together.

Maria Teresa Kumar, Executive Director, Voto Latino, Age: 35
Kumar had her own successful political consulting business with clients like Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Accenture and AT&T before she decided to start Voto Latino with actress Rosario Dawson in 2004. She sunk her life savings into the non-profit and moved back into her parents’ home. She knew her idea —use technology to motivate Hispanic youth to participate in American politics —was a good one, but it wasn’t until the 2006 immigration mobilizations that donors came around. With their help, Voto Latino used text messages, social media, volunteers and celebrities to bring down the price of registering a Hispanic voter from $30 to $7, and increasing the number of people registered in one hour from the usual handful of door-to-door sign-ups, to about 50. Now with 11 employees nationwide, Voto Latino is planning to start registration drives in 10 states during this year’s mid-term elections, and is encouraging participation in the Census using Twitter, iTunes and viral videos.

Nínive Calegari, Co-founder and CEO, 826 National, Age: 39
In 2002, Calegari and novelist Dave Eggers founded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing center for youth aged six to 18 in San Francisco’s Mission District. Since then, local chapters have opened in Ann Arbor, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and Washington DC. Calegari is a veteran of public schooling, having been a teacher for ten years. Calegari started teaching in Cuernavaca, Mexico, her family’s hometown and now holds masters from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. She is also the coauthor of Teachers Have it Easy: the Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers.

Javier Rodriguez, Senior Vice President, DaVita, Age: 39
Rodriguez is a senior executive at the Fortune 500 health services company DaVita, which provides dialysis services for patients suffering from kidney failure. Rodriguez heads the company’s relationships with insurance companies and oversees 20 percent of its operations, representing $1 billion of the company’s $5.6 billion in sales last year. Before joining DaVita in 1998, Rodriguez, worked in finance at Baxter Healthcare Corporation and also lead operations for CBS Marketing in Mexico City, where he lived throughout his childhood. He is an alumnus of Boston College and Harvard Business School.

Marco Rubio, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate seat from Florida, Age: 38
Rubio has emerged as the front-runner for the U.S. Senate seat in Florida being vacated by Mel Martinez. To get there he has leap-frogged Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist, once considered a shoe-in for the Republican primary. A former lawyer and local government lobbyist, Rubio, 38, has risen fast up the political ranks, becoming one of the highest-ranking Cuban-Americans in the state. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2000 after serving a City Commissioner in West Miami. He gained a major influence over state legislation when he took over as speaker of the House from November 2006 through November 2008. A father of four, who is considered to be close to former Governor Jeb Bush, Rubio champions a conservative, anti-big government approach to politics.