Animus announces summit launch for second year and reveals September lineup with Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Sonia Sotomayor

NEW YORK CITY, NY, UNITED STATES, August 31, 2016 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Animus summit, an innovation platform designed to maximize women's economic and personal development around business, mindfulness, empowerment, and entrepreneurship will launch on September 30, 2016 in San Juan, Puerto Rico and will be hosted at the Caribe Hilton Hotel located at 1 San Geronimo Street.

After the success of Animus’ first summit, which addressed over 600 attendees — entrepreneurs Lucienne Gigante and Carlos Cobian have joined forces to launch Animus again this year. The purpose of Animus is to inspire, educate and encourage women to take action as entrepreneurs and reach their highest level of personal and professional growth. This year the organizers focused on inviting a group of powerful and influential women that have broken the glass ceiling and hold positions of power in male dominated industries. One of them is, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Sonia Sotomayor.

The founders believe that investing in women is a way to boost the economic development of any country, especially in the Americas. According to American Express OPEN’s 2014 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, it is estimated that there are nearly 9.1 million women-owned businesses in the United States, generating over $1.4 trillion in revenues and employing nearly 7.9 million people. Of those, as of 2016, there are just under 1.9 million Latina-owned firms, employing 550,400 workers and generating $97 billion in revenues. Between 2007 and 2016, the number of Latina-owned firms increased by 137% - the highest increase seen among minority women-owned firms.

"Investing in women is a key driver to boost the economic development of any country," said Lucienne Gigante, Co-Founder of the summit. "Providing resources, solutions and opportunities is critical to stimulate innovation," she added, noting that Animus is for every woman or man who wants to make a difference, learn, grow, build alliances, and challenge existing paradigms.

Minorities and women not only represent the fastest growing segment of consumers but also of entrepreneurs in the United States. Latina-owned firms comprise 46% of all Latino-owned firms, according to The 2016 State Of Women-Owned Business Report. Animus will provide information, ideas, perspective and strategies to develop or hone an entrepreneurial mindset.

"Seeing first-hand how entrepreneurship contributes to the creation of wealth and jobs has always inspired me to seek new projects and opportunities," said Carlos Cobian, Founder of Cobian Media and Animus. “I am focused on developing initiatives in agriculture, innovation-based entrepreneurship, women empowerment and next generation jobs,” he added.

Animus is structured to be a dynamic event featuring various formats — from five minute-talks, ten-minute storytelling sessions, keynote speeches, and panels. Animus will also feature a startup showcase where five entrepreneurs will pitch their business. Speakers include:

Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Maite Oronoz Rodriguez, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.
Maria Cristina Gonzalez Noguera, Senior Vice President, Global Public Affairs and Government Relations at The Estée Lauder Companies and Former Assistant to the President of the United States Barack Obama and Director of Communications to First Lady Michelle Obama.
Frances Colon, Deputy Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State at the U.S. Department of State.
Katina Rojas-Joy, Senior Director, Specialty Sales (Military) and Policy Research for Respira Medical and Former Deputy Director of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Ileana Cruz-Marden, U.S. Association for the UN High Commission for Refugees and Former Aide to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Giselle Blondet, Entrepreneur, Actress & TV Host.
Eliana Murillo, Head of Multicultural Marketing at Google, Inc.
Jovanka Ciares, Creator of the Wellness Smackdown.
Ana Maria Vihon, Features Reporter, WGN Morning News.
Alessandra Bradley-Burns, Chief Strategic Officer, DEILAB.
Nathalie Molina-Nino, CEO Self Made.
Teruca Rullan, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications, Popular Inc.

For more information about the summit, and to learn about our speakers please visit www.animussummit.com. To join the conversation online please use #AnimusPR.

Join the conversation: #AnimusPR
@AnimusSummit

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About Animus
Animus is an innovation summit designed to inspire women to take action to reach their highest level of personal and professional development. Animus is for all women—employees, executives, entrepreneurs, future entrepreneurs, volunteers—anyone who wants to grow and make a difference.

About Lucienne Gigante
Lucienne is responsible for the creation of many corporate social responsibility platforms. She developed the first accelerator for women entrepreneurs in Puerto Rico Women of Success, which is a business competition program that resulted in the creation of over 40 new women-owned businesses. Gigante has received over 50 awards throughout her career such as the PR News’ ‘Community Person of the Year’ award. She has also received recognition from the Commission on Women Issues of the Senate of Puerto Rico. She is the Co-Founder of Animus and the Co-Founder of AccessLatina, the first multi-market women’s business accelerator program run in the United States. Lucienne is also the founder of LuGi, LLC, a positioning firm that creates programs and strategies stemming out of companies’ key contributions to society.

About Carlos Cobian
Carlos is an accomplished entrepreneur known for developing and fostering the growth of Latin American businesses. Cobian also co-founded Idea Wireless, a pioneer in the use of mobile devices as marketing tools for brands. Wireless Idea allowed content providers to monetize their content via mobile devices across 17 countries in Latin America. Carlos Cobian is the founder of Cobian Media, H3 Tech Conference, AgroHack and the co-founder of Animus. Cobian is also the Founder and President of Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) of Puerto Rico. He is a board member of The San Juan Tech Meetup, a mentor of the Founders Institute of Silicon Valley (who recognized him as Startup Ecosystem Champion in 2015), and an adviser for the global Puerto Rican based accelerator program, Parallel18. He was recognized in 2016 by the Chamber of Commerce of Puerto Rico as the 'Business Person of the Year’.

Catherine Cuello-Fuente
InsideCrowd PR
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