JACK RICO

My name is Jack Rico, a Latino pop culture expert, bilingual entertainment journalist, film critic, television host, keynote speaker, and cultural strategist.

For more than two decades, my work has focused on how Latino culture influences and reshapes American media and entertainment, who gets to define it, and what those changes mean for us.

Today, my wife and business partner, Jacqueline Hernández, and I lead New Majority Ready, where we work with organizations like Netflix, Lincoln Center, and Comic Relief on cultural strategy, brand storytelling, and content development to help them better understand and reach Gen Z and multicultural Americans while future-proofing their businesses.

In 2007, I founded ShowBizCafe.com. Much of my work there as editor-in-chief remains a 20-year time capsule for Latino Hollywood.

Jump forward to late 2024, I appeared in ABC News’ primetime special “Latinos in Hollywood: Owning Our Destiny”, discussing the history and significance of Latino representation in American cinema.

I also hosted the Apple-featured Highly Relevant podcast for six years, featuring interviews with Latinos reshaping the American mainstream. The award-winning Brown & Black, which I created and co-hosted for five years, expanded to television with two episodes on CUNY TV exploring AI and Afro-Latino culture in Hollywood.

Over the years, I have also contributed to ABC News, NBC’s “TODAY,” MSNBC, VH1, Telemundo and Univision, and have been quoted by The Washington Post, Bloomberg, People Magazine, BuzzFeed News and NBC News.

My interviews and moderated conversations have included Aubrey Plaza, Cameron Diaz, Jessica Chastain, George Lopez, Beyoncé, Guillermo del Toro, Josh Radnor, and Grammy CEO Harvey Mason Jr., along with moderating panels for television and film for HBO Latino, HBO Max, Picturehouse Films, amongst others.

My whole television career began as one of the founding anchors of Univision 41’s “Al Despertar,” New York City’s first Spanish-language morning newscast. Years later, I hosted NBC and Telemundo’s Emmy-nominated “Consumer 101” for two seasons.

I founded and served as the inaugural chair of ¡Viva Broadway!, The Broadway League’s national audience-development partnership with Latino audiences. I later taught Entertainment Journalism as an adjunct professor at Montclair State University.

I am a member of the Television Academy, where I vote for the Emmy Awards; the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), where I serve as a judge for the Webby Awards; the Critics Choice Association; and LEJA, the Latino Entertainment Journalists Association.