Welcome back to the “Latinas in Tech” TV show coming to you “live” and direct from The FACTory in downtown snOrrrrrlando starring Dr. Nutmeg’s Femmebots® and tonight’s fabulous guest:
Founder of Mujeres in Marketing, Ashley Rivera Mercado!
Ashley launched Mujeres in Marketing in April 2024 in Central Florida for the professional advancement of Latinas in the marketing, advertising, and communications industries. She is a member of Latinas in Tech, former Communications and Social Media Lead for autonomous vehicle startup Luminar Technologies, and currently working as Social Media Content Developer at KPMG.
Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Orlando, Ashley shares the lessons passed on by her abuela “Ita,” promotes Cadena Collective and Luz Media, and describes the luscious experience of using the restroom like a jibara from el campo at La Placita — a Boricua restaurant in Miami which no longer exists, so we should totally copy and re-create it right here in snOrrrrrrrrrlandooooo!
If you haven’t already watched the highlights of the interview in the video above,
scroll down to get more in depth with Ashley in the text below, and
learn how Dr. Nutmeg animated new Femmebots with RunwayML!
How did you launch your career in marketing?
I got my start in marketing at Luz Media. I was working on finishing my bachelor's at the University of Central Florida here in Orlando in 2019, saving money to move to DC, and then COVID happened. I bought a house and I was suddenly very house poor!
I was scrolling through Instagram and I had followed Luz Media because I saw Lucy speak at this event and I saw they were hiring people and announcing their team hires. I commented on that post like, “Hey, are you hiring interns?” And Lucy herself replied and said yes, email or send a DM. They interviewed me and I got an internship at Luz Media.
So then I was working at the University of Central Florida.
I worked in admissions and I was also working freelance for Luz. I was an intern and then I became part time. From there I started managing social media accounts and writing articles. When I came on as a part time employee I was working with our project manager at the time Alejandra Aguirre. She owns Cadena Collective now. She went viral on TikTok and could dedicate herself full time to this business where she sells amazing goods from Mexican artisans in the U.S. It's really great.
I'm always plugging my people! :)
They just did a rebrand and she's a very hard worker, was an amazing contributor to the team. I have the passport holder from the store and I'm in love with it and I always get asked where it's from. Their stuff is just really top notch.
Tell me about the workshop you did in 2021:
Discover Your Inner Bruja.
Alejandra (from Cadena Collective) had this really great content idea of creating a series of interviews with women focused on different areas of the Internet.
So then she was like, “Hey, there's these really cool women called the Brujas of Brooklyn. They're very cool. They've been in Refinery 29.”
I consider myself spiritual. I believe in having a very personal relationship with God and that's not determined by religion. It's determined by me and my investment back in myself. So that's kind of where the talk came from.
And then we found Esoteric Esa and we were just like let's interview her, let's talk about spirituality, let’s talk about what those practices look like. So Lucy tapped me in to help with that talk. But Lucy really likes to be hands-on and manage the partnerships. So for that time it was a very scrappy media company creating cool stuff. It had a lot of attendees. It was a really cool conversation. I don't consider myself religious, but I learned a lot about doing limpias and saging your house after having company, and when you move into a new house, how you should use palo santo to cleanse the energies. I super believe in all of that so it taught me a lot about that and that is a very long explanation behind that event!
Who was your abuela?
Yeah so I love that question because I directly credit my grandma — my mom's mom — her name is Carmen but we call her Ita because my cousin couldn't say abuelita when he was little. So he shortened it to Ita and we just all call her Ita. But yeah she's my grandmother, she's now in her late seventies. She does have really advanced Alzheimer's and memory loss. I always say it's really important to honor my ancestors because they are at least like 20 to 30 percent of my personality. I was born in Puerto Rico and we moved to the mainland when I was three. But I spent every summer there growing up and I spent it with her and my dad's mom. But I will say Ita was the type of woman that she wasn't seen as like super loving because she wasn't someone who doted on you because she was very independent and she wanted to instill that in us as well.
Q: Tell me about this photo and the caption:
Tell me about La Placita in Miami…like can we copy/re-create what they tried to create?
What was it like being a Puerto Rican student at Winter Park High School in the 2010s?
The majority of Latinos are still not in the AP (Advanced Placement) classes!
What is your vision for Mujeres in Marketing?
Being accessible to any Latina. Latinas in Tech was a big inspiration for Mujeres in Marketing.
What is your vision for Orlando?
Orlando is getting to be a very interesting city. One of main reasons I like Orlando is we have a diverse Latino population. There’s a lot of investment here.
Read Ashley’s review of Bad Bunny’s new album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” and check out Dr. Nutmeg’s interviews with other Femmebots:
Isabel Custer, Edith Quintanilla, Erika Mayol, and Valeria Avila Guerrero.
Dr. Nutmeg’s New Animation Process for 2025
After Dr. Nutmeg awakened from a coma last month, she was disoriented (and lazy), especially when she finally got back to building and programming a fleet of new Femmebots for 2025. Long story short, she accidentally recycled Isabel Custer, the first Femmebot created in season 3 last year! If you click on that link, you’ll see how advanced the technology has gotten.
We interrupt this tech workshop with a marketing plug!
If you couldn’t make it to Sundance, Isabel’s Key Biscayne Film Festival is coming up this week!
And now back to the mini tech workshop…
Fun Fact: The Latin word animare means “to give life to” or “to fill with breath.” It is the root of the English word “animate,” which means “alive” or “spirited.”
Dr. Nutmeg learned Latin AND JavaScript while she was underground (in a coma), as well as the art of delegating the animations to RunwayML’s new “Act One” feature. Here’s a screenshot:
Did you try to click on that screenshot? Haha, that was just a promo for those of you interested in learning how to use RunwayML.
Dr. Nutmeg is preparing a [PAID] tech workshop
for a future episode, so stay tuned!
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