Board Room

Delivering our corporate strategy


Our Board is composed of community and international leaders with expertise in a wide range of areas, including media, technology, consumer products, entertainment, content, advertising and business management. Together they take care of the strategic and financial health of Canela Media on an ongoing basis.

Board Members

Isabel Rafferty

Founder & CEO

Isabel Rafferty Zavala is a digital marketing pioneer. She is the Founder and CEO of Canela Media, a leading digital media tech company that gives brands the tools they need to effectively connect with multicultural audiences through multiple touchpoints, including its free-to-stream platform Canela.TV, influencer marketing, branded content, and more than 180 exclusive Spanish-language sites. Prior to starting Canela Media, Rafferty founded Mobvious, a company dedicated to reaching U.S. Hispanic and African-American audiences via mobile advertising. Under Rafferty’s leadership, Mobvious quickly became the largest Hispanic-focused ad network, as ranked by Comscore, before being acquired by PRISA in 2017.

Susan Lyne

Managing Partner, BBG Ventures

Susan Lyne is managing partner of BBG Ventures, an NYC-based, early-stage fund leading investments in companies built by underestimated founders that are transforming our collective and lived experiences. Before founding BBG Ventures she had a long career in media, commerce and consumer products. She began her career in the magazine industry, where she founded and led Premiere Magazine. She spent almost a decade at Disney, rising to President of Entertainment at ABC. She was the CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; CEO and then Chair of Gilt.com; and CEO of AOL’s Brand Group. Her biggest wins have come from listening to, building for and betting on women.

Michael Rafferty

Chief Operating Officer

Michael is Chief Operating Officer at Canela Media focused on the Content, Technology, Audience Experience, and Distribution. Throughout his career he has been the lead in launching countless new projects and products. Michael started in Media 16 years ago at Freedom Communication working in corporate leadership development in a division with 35 properties across the US. After Freedom, he worked at the LA Times, reporting to the CRO and launched projects that integrating legacy print and new digital AR activations. In addition to Canela Media, Michael is active in community organizations focused on eliminating poverty, homelessness and human trafficking.

Luis Gutiérrez

CEO of FIBRA Prologis

Luis Gutiérrez is Prologis’ president for Latin America and the CEO of FIBRA Prologis, a public vehicle in Mexico. His responsibilities include development, acquisition and operations in both Mexico and Brazil. He was a founding member of Gaccion, one of the largest developers in Mexico, where he served as CEO and became a partner with AMB Property Corporation. He is currently president of AMEFIBRA (Mexican Association of FIBRAs), has served as president of AMPIP (Mexican Association of Industrial Parks) and is a member of the board of directors of Finaccess.

Rodrigo García

Advisor, Angeles Investors + Global Chief Financial Officer, Talipot*Holding

Rodrigo Garcia is a highly analytical and detail-focused C-level finance executive with proven leadership ability. Industry leaders turn to Garcia to lead organizations with complex business activities and/or in need of transformational change, financial and investment expertise, technology innovation and new product development, corporate strategy & venture capital, and ESG. Currently, he is an advisor to Angeles Investors and the global chief financial officer for Talipot*Holding, a global investment enterprise and multinational conglomerate holding company with dozens of controlling and non-controlling investments across various sectors and industries. Garcia is the former deputy state treasurer and chief investment officer for the 5th largest economy in the U.S., the State of Illinois. Serving in that role from 2015 to 2021, Garcia directed the Illinois treasury’s combined $52 billion investment portfolios, $275 billion in related banking operations and payment services, and a $3.2 billion agency budget and financial reporting unit. Garcia is an Adjunct Professor in Public Finance at Northwestern University and is a frequent contributor on financial innovation, corporate governance, executive leadership, and the capital markets.

Advisors

Adela Cepeda

Finance Specialist

A finance specialist since 1980, Adela Cepeda has been included among the 50 Most Powerful Latinas by the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA), for two consecutive years and has been recognized with numerous awards in Chicago and nationally for her extensive philanthropic activities and business accomplishments. The National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) selected her for inclusion in the 2021 NACD Directorship 100 a recognition given to the most influential leaders in corporate governance.

Lauren Zalaznick

Corporate Director

Business leader with 25+ years’ experience creating and implementing growth strategies for leading media companies and digital startups. Today, she serves as a corporate director for The Nielsen Corporation, GoPro, and The RTL Group. Zalaznick has devoted her career to transforming the cultural landscape and has been widely recognized as an industry shape shifter and innovator. Time magazine named Zalaznick one of the “Time 100: World’s Most Influential People,” and Vanity Fair named her to their “New Establishment” list; earlier, she was the subject of a New York Times Magazine cover story.

SC Moatti

Founding Managing Partner, Mighty Capital

SC Moatti is the Founding Managing Partner of Mighty Capital; the Founding CEO of Products That Count, the most influential product acceleration platform; and a lecturer at Stanford and Columbia Universities. Prior, SC built products that billions of people use at Facebook and Nokia. Andrew Chen, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, called SC “a genius at making products people love.” SC serves on the boards of public and private companies, earned a master’s in electrical engineering, a Stanford MBA, and is a Kauffman Fellow.

Lisa Dolan

She has over 15 years of experience in investments, technology, and data prediction. Lisa is an investment principal with Link Ventures, a venture capital firm established in 2006 that invests in disruptive internet technology companies that leverage big data to help them differentiate, scale, and become profitable. She previously led business development and early stage investments for Bullet Point Network (BPN) and its founder, Mike Ryan’s family office, MDR Capital. BPN is a fundamental research team, which leverages a graph model to produce logical scenarios for cash flow and valuation over time. Lisa continues to serve as an advisor of BPN.

Richard Wolpert

A pioneer in the fields of technology, consumer digital media and entertainment for more than 30 years. Extensive experience as an executive, entrepreneur and as an investor. Responsible for many “firsts” throughout his career including: conceiving of and teaching the first Macintosh Programming Class at Stanford University (CS 193C), the first multi-user address book for the Macintosh (TouchBase), the first kids internet subscription service (Disney’s Daily Blast), the first Tivo-like product for the Internet Radio (BitBop Tuner), the first legitimate music subscription service for the Internet (MusicNet), and the first legitimate online movie subscription service (Starz! On Demand).