CESAR: There's a very simple premise that you know, we were taught very early on, my younger brothers and I, by our parents, which was is that the only thing in the world that no one can ever take away from you is your education.

Like millions in our community before them, my parents immigrated here to the United States.

My mom's from Cuba, my dad from Peru.

And so for my brothers and I, I mean, in that luck of life, when it comes to parents, we really hit the lottery.

We grew up speaking Spanish at home.

I think it was our parents' way of ensuring that we have a very clear sense of where we came from.

Um, a very good appreciation for our heritage.

But in the same breath that they also brought us up to be very proud and very grateful to have been born here in the United States and to be American.

The high school I went to in Miami was 99% Hispanic.

95% of that was Cuban American.

When I got to Harvard, it was the first time I think that I was in an environment where one realized that you, one wasn't the majority.

One of the things that I ended up doing was starting the Cuban-American Students Association, CAUSE.

It was the first, obviously, at the university, and it was the first of its kind and it was replicated among other universities.

And I think what it helped me and it helped those of us that have gone through that experience was bring that insight, bring all of those experiences that we had grown up with to help expose that to a broader, a broader set of people.

So I was very fortunate.

I was nominated and then accepted to the White House Fellows program.

I was fortunate to be placed to be the special assistant, or one of the special assistants for then Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

And really, my what my aspiration was to work in a field where I could have impact in a, in a large-scale way.

But two, I was very passionate about the Hispanic community.

And it was my time with General Powell, during the White House fellowship, that helped me crystallized through conversations with him to understand the power of what media could have, if practiced responsibly.

And so that's how I landed on pursuing a career in media, and more specifically, I started my career in Hispanic media.

One of the challenges of our generation is the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation that we are seeing not just here in the United States, but around the world.

In the news profession and in journalism.

Our main currency is trust.

And so building trust with all of the communities that we're trying to serve around the country and around the world is one of the primary responsibilities and one of the primary focuses that we have.

Diversity plays a fundamental role in the success of our business because we need to be able to represent all of the communities that we're trying to serve from a gender perspective, from a race-ethnicity perspective, from a socioeconomic perspective, from a diversity of geography, and from a diversity of perspective.

And if we can do that effectively and build teams in front and behind the camera that represent the broad definition of diversity like that, we are going to be able to better serve and empower all of the communities that we're trying to work with.

I think the programs that have allowed us to create mentorship opportunities for our communities, particularly younger folks in our communities we think is so fundamental, and they're very near and dear to my heart.

Unless you can see something, you can't be something.

And so, helping our youth that are coming through the ranks, especially communities that have been underserved in certain professions in the past, helping them understand that these careers, that these opportunities are possible, I think is one of the most gratifying and most important things that we can do.

I'm a big believer in that.

You know, we are all in these roles, we're all in these positions, really only for a temporary moment.

My hope is that you know, I'm able to leave whatever organization, whatever team I'm a part of in a better place when I leave it than when I inherited it.

I grew up watching this award ceremony.

The people that I grew up admiring, the people that I was inspired by to be able to join that list means a tremendous amount, and hopefully, it's going to serve as yet another of the many examples we have in our community of what's possible with the right values of dreaming big, working hard, and staying humble.