Jorge Fontanez: Rebuilding Puerto Rico (Ep. 142)

Bio

Jorge Fontanez (@CuriousJLuis) is the founder of Marca Studio and operates as senior strategist, innovator and problem-solver passionate about creating and launching digital engagement and storytelling programs. He has been working at the intersection of technology, sustainability and marketing for over 15 years and experiments with models of stakeholder engagement in his role as Clinical Professor of Marketing at the Bard MBA in Sustainability Program.  Jorge is a First Movers Fellow since 2014 at the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program and collaborates with the Google Next Generation Policy Leaders influencing how tech policy affects communities of color. Jorge is an Afro-Latinx, queer affirming voice hailing from Philadelphia, representing the Puerto Rican diaspora and lives in New York City.

Jorge maintains a strong record delivering consistent execution of national, integrated marketing campaigns and was honored as a “40 under 40” Brand Innovator in 2012 for expertise in digital marketing. In 2011 and 2012, Jorge was also honored as an Official Honoree of The Webby Awards in the category of Corporate Social Responsibility for his leadership of Chase Community Giving, an employee and customer engagement program of JPMorgan Chase & Co. delivering over $25MM in grants to thousands of nonprofits nationwide.  Jorge now pursues his passion and interests in corporate citizenship, improving the world of philanthropy and stakeholder engagement through purpose-driven and impact marketing programs that scale.

Resources

Marca Studio

Collective Action for Puerto Rico

News Roundup

Court greenlights AT&T/Time Warner merger setting the stage for more consolidation

Federal DC Circuit Judge Richard Leon ruled that the Department of Justice failed to prove that AT&T’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner violates federal antitrust laws, giving the greenlight for the $52 billion merger, which the companies closed on the same day. Comcast then made a $65 billion move to outbid Disney for 21^st Century Fox, and Sprint and T-Mobile have now proposed a merger. The FCC opened a docket to review the Sprint/TMobile merger on Friday.

Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Indicted

Federal prosecutors have indicted Elizabeth Holmes, the once-promising founder of  Theranos—a faulty blood testing technology company once valued at $10 billion. The company’s former president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, was also indicted. They’re charged with 9 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. They’re accused of defrauding investors of $100 million. They’ve plead not guilty. The Securities and Exchange Commission has also accused Theranos’s founders of fraud.

Trump calls for creation of a Space Force

President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to create a new branch of the military—a “Space Force”—that will seek to achieve U.S. dominance in space. At a meeting of the National Space Council at the White House Trump said, “We are going to have the Air Force, and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal”. Senator Bill Nelson, a former astronaut, is against the proposal and tweeted that it is something that military leadership has told him they do not want.

Google released its diversity report

Google released its annual diversity report last week and it shows black employees make up just 2.5% of the company even though the U.S. Census Bureau says they comprise 13.3% of the population. Latinx employees make up 17.8% of the population, but just 3.6% of Google’s workforce. The company also released for the first time data on attrition rates which show that, at 27 points above the index, black employees are leaving the company at a higher rate than other groups. Latinx employees are leaving the company at 15 points above the index.

Apple will remove backdoor for law enforcement

Finally, Apple announced last week that it would be removing the iPhone port that lets law enforcement break into iPhones. There’s only one problem with this —  an official reportedly told Politico that this may create an opportunity for officers to exploit the exigent need exception—allowing them to access the phone without a warrant.