Elena Bazán

Professional in the Spanish-language print and digital publishing industry with extensive experience in the creation, management, and distribution of electronic and audio content. She has collaborated with various companies and publishers in Mexico, Spain, Germany, and China. Speaker and teacher on topics in the digital publishing industry. Editor and author. She creates books in all formats for all audiences. She is currently the leader of editorial production at audiolibre publishing.

audiolibre is a Mexican audio publishing company founded in 2023. With an experienced team that has developed hundreds of audiobooks and an audio-first vision, it is dedicated to the creation and management of audio catalogs, production, and distribution of audiobooks in Spanish, focused on the Mexican and North American markets.

Javier Celaya

Javier Celaya is a founding partner of Dosdoce.com. From this platform, Javier has been responsible for the launch of the main digital platforms in the Spanish markets (Spain and Latin America): Bookwire, Storytel and Podimo, among others. Javier is co-Academic Director of the Master in Editorial Management and Digital Marketing at the University of Alcalá in collaboration with the Escuela de Unidad Editorial (ESUE). Since 2014 he has been part of the editorial committee of the Digital Culture Yearbook of Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), which has become an annual reference document on the evolution of digital trends in the world of culture. Dosdoce.com was born in March 2004 with the purpose of trying to better understand the digital era in which we live. The objective of Dosdoce.com has been to encourage professionals in the cultural industry to transform their entities to grow their activities through the benefits derived from the Internet. Over the years, Dosdoce.com has advised leading companies in the digital economy such as Bookwire, Storytel, Podimo, DeMarque, Skeelo, Benetech, Copia, among others. It has also produced more than 300 studies on the use of new technologies in different areas of the cultural sector (business models, distribution strategies, creation of digital content, etc.), and published thousands of articles to help professionals in the sector understand the opportunities offered by the Internet.

Javier Aceves

Javier Aceves 'Baxter' is a leading content and marketing strategist with over 20 years of experience in the entertainment, broadcast, news media, and subscription services industries. His career spans roles as a radio host, social strategist for Netflix, founder of the Mexican edition of BuzzFeed, and co-founder of a content marketing agency that has worked with high-profile clients such as Coca-Cola, adidas, and Live Nation. Additionally, he has an artistic side as a musician under the project Los Árboles Mentirosos, exploring sonic textures of noise with distorted guitars and synthesizers. Baxter is the author of the novel “A Little Fire (Let’s Say a Cigarette),” published by Reservoir Books in 2018. He currently serves as Director of Content Acquisition at Everand, a Scribd Inc. company.

Everand is a digital content subscription service offering millions of e-books, audiobooks, magazines, news articles, podcasts, sheet music, and more for $149 MXN per month. The app is a destination for stories and knowledge that constantly adds new, original content in collaboration with the world’s leading publishers, authors, and other storytelling partners. Everand recommends content that fits a variety of lifestyles and reading habits, making moments more interesting, entertaining, and meaningful. The app is available on iOS and Android devices, as well as web browsers and Apple Watch. Everand™ and Scribd® are trademarks of Scribd, Inc.

Marina Penalva

Marina Penalva (Valencia, 1980) se graduó en Comunicación Audiosual por la Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona y completó sus estudios en Munich y Copenhague. Ha trabajado durante más de 20 años en el sector editorial, como agente literaria y como editora de ficción y no ficción. En el año 2019 se incorporó a Casanovas & Lynch, agencia literaria especializada en autores literarios de España y América Latina (Javier Marías, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Raul Zurita, Juan José Millás, Mariana Enriquez, Gabriela Wiener, Laura Esquivel, Daniel Saldaña París, Layla Martínez, entre otros), donde se ocupa de la gestión de los derechos domésticos y audiovisuales de un pequeño grupo de autores, entre los que se incluyen Andrea Abreu, Irene Solà, Irene Vallejo, Munir Hachemi, Dahlia de la Cerda, Andrés Cota Hiriart, Gabi Martínez, Miguel Ángel Hernádez, Andrés Felipe Solano o Karina Sainz Borgo, entre otros. También dirige el área de clientes internacionales de la agencia y se ocupa la representación internacional de un creciente número de editoriales asiáticas. 

Establecida como una de las principales agencias literarias en Europa, Casanovas & Lynch representa algunos de los escritores más relevantes y premiados de España y América Latina. La agencia también representa los catálogos de un destacado grupo de editoriales y agencias internacionales. Fundada en Barcelona en el 1981, Casanovas & Lynch obtuvo el premio a la Mejor Agencia Literaria del Año en los London Book Fair Excellence Awards 2020.

José Hamad

José Hamad (Madrid, 1976) estudió Filosofía en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (España) y en la North London University (Reino Unido). Ha trabajado en el sector editorial desde hace 25 años, primero como editor en sellos como Debate, Tabla Rasa y 451 Editores, y más tarde como scout literario de lengua española en EH Scouting Agency. En 2008 fue escogido por la Feria del Libro de Frankfurt para integrar el programa Frankfurter Buchmesse’s Frankfurt Fellowship. Ha impartido clases en los Máster de Edición de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid y Universidad Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona, así como en la Universidad Diego Portales en Chile. Desde 2018 es editor en la editorial Sexto Piso.

Sexto Piso es una editorial independiente fundada en México en 2002 y establecida en España desde 2005, cuyo catálogo incluye obras de clásicos contemporáneos como  Vivian Gornick, Jane Smiley, Angela Carter o Pascal Quignard, y autores contemporáneos como Jesmyn Ward, Tess Gunty, Miriam Toews, Katie Kitamura, Ted Chiang o Valeria Luiselli.

Eugenia Bascarán

Eugenia Bascarán began her professional career in the marketing area of ​​global technical publishers, then worked on the development and growth of e-books in Latin America. Between 2018 and 2022 she worked for the LatAm team of Storytel, the Swedish audiobook company, as Content Manager.
In 2023 she worked for Spotify United States in a consultancy on the Spanish catalog for its new vertical "Audiobooks in Premium".
With the conviction that audio is the ideal vehicle to attract new audiences to stories and learning, she founded ReadingU together with Juampi Bellini in 2017, which is today the production company with the most audiobooks produced in Latin America. In 2021 they launched Ridu, an app of original stories of audio horror and true crime, which has more than 500,000 downloads in more than 70 countries.
Through ReadingU, Eugenia also offers consulting and training on the catalog, market and production of audio content.

Other activities involving the participant:

Your voice, your story: how to publish your own audiobook

Fernanda Álvarez

Fernanda Álvarez. With more than twenty years of experience in the publishing sector, she has worked with fiction and non-fiction books, both literary and commercial, and today her mission is to develop a new catalog to reach all types of readers.
Hachette Livre México is a publishing house mainly focused on textbooks under the umbrella of Larousse and Grupo Patria. Since September 2023, it has started a new project to publish books of general interest and fiction by local and Latin American authors.

René López Villamar

René López Villamar. He studied Electronic Engineering and Hispanic Literature. With 25 years of experience, he works as an editor and consultant in the area of ​​new technologies, in particular e-books, audiobooks, reading promotion and online marketing for the publishing industry.

Storytel is one of the largest audiobook and e-book streaming services in the world, offering more than 1.5 million titles globally. The Storytel Group operates in more than 25 markets, focusing on ten main markets: the five Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Turkey, Poland, Bulgaria and the United States. The streaming business within the Storytel Group is carried out under the brands Storytel, Mofibo and Audiobooks.com. The publishing business is managed by Storytel Books and the audiobook publisher StorySide. The headquarters are located in Stockholm, Sweden.

Mauricio Sánchez

Mauricio Sánchez es gestor cultural y editor. Actualmente participa en dos proyectos editoriales: codirige Gris Tormenta, una editorial independiente de memoria y ensayo literario que reflexiona sobre la cultura y el pensamiento contemporáneos, y La otra feria, un espacio de difusión de la producción editorial independiente que se realiza en México.  

Ana Sofía Saucedo Fuentes

Editor and cultural manager. She has collaborated with various independent publishers, was director of communications at the General Directorate of Publications of the federal Ministry of Culture and coordinator of strategic alliances at Travesías Media. She is currently in charge of the content area and the relationship with editors for the development of Bookmate in Latin America.
Bookmate is a reading application that allows you to read and listen to millions of books and audiobooks on mobile devices.

Anasofía Sánchez

Anasofía actualmente se desempeña como Country Manager de Audible para México, donde desempeña un papel integral de planificación estratégica para continuar satisfaciendo a los oyentes mexicanos e identificando oportunidades para impulsar el conocimiento de la marca Audible en el mercado. Antes de Audible, ocupó puestos de liderazgo en Facebook, Google y agencias de publicidad, donde demostró su experiencia en el crecimiento y desarrollo de negocios. Anasofía ha sido reconocida como una mujer líder en el mundo empresarial por las revistas Forbes y Expansión, y se enorgullece de alentar a las mujeres a seguir carreras en las industrias de la tecnología y la publicidad.

Audible es el principal creador y proveedor de historias de audio de primera calidad, ofreciendo a las audiencias de todo el mundo una forma potente de mejorar y enriquecer sus vidas a través de un contenido increíble. El catálogo de Audible incluye Audible Originales, así como audiolibros y podcasts de los principales estudios, editoriales, y artistas de renombre mundial. Audible enciende la imaginación de los oyentes, ofreciendo experiencias inmersivas y cinematográficas llenas de inspiración y perspicacia para millones de personas en todo el planeta cada día.

Estefanía Rosas-Priego

Estefanía Rosas-Priego Bustos has two careers that complement each other in surprising ways. She studied Biology at the University of Guadalajara and later Management and Administration of SMEs at UNAM. If you add to that the fact that she grew up in a family dedicated to printed literature, you find someone who has brought a completely fresh vision to the world of audio content. In addition to being Head of Audiobooks at Pedro Y El Lobo Studios, she is CEO of Chicas Ruidosas.

Chicas Ruidosas is an audio production company based in Mexico City, dedicated to creating creative and exceptional experiences. We offer specialized services for a wide range of audio projects. From planning, recording, mixing, to mastering and post-production, our hallmark is to deliver the highest quality sound to our clients to make their stories resonate. We live with a passion for storytelling through audio and specialise in co-creating original content such as engaging podcasts, as well as producing audiobooks for renowned clients such as Storytel, Audible and Scribd (Everand). We firmly believe that voice and music are mediums to transport, inspire and connect, which is why we constantly strive to create art through sound.

Manuel Meza

Manuel Meza. For the last two years, he has been responsible for the literature area of ​​Santillana and for the last year, he has been responsible for all the company's products in Mexico. His entire career, inside and outside of Santillana, has been dedicated to understanding and revolutionizing the publishing markets in which he operates. His conviction is that if we change the consumer culture, we can change the way we think about the medium.

Loqueleo is a Santillana company that, during the ten years it has been on the market, has managed to consolidate a powerful, reflective, inclusive and coherent catalog with the world we live in. A child of its time, Loqueleo, for the last two years, has sought a way to revolutionize the way we consume stories, the way we connect with them. From the world of books to the world of stories and back again, is our mantra.

Eric Dabdoub

Eric Dabdoub is the CEO of John Marshall Media LATAM, and has more than 15 years of experience in the audiobook world. In the audio and recording industry, he has combined his passion for audio and curiosity about entrepreneurship to create studios and companies. Graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, fate led him to work in New York, where he gradually became immersed in the world of audiobooks, starting as an engineer/editor, moving on to become a director and then winning his first awards, Audies, Earphone Awards, among others. At the same time, he had the idea of ​​founding John Marshall Media LATAM in partnership with John Marshall Cheary, and, as they say, the rest is history. Today he is the leader of a team of more than 65 people specialized in the production of audiobooks. With an intact curiosity and passion for producing the best audiobooks possible, there is nothing that makes him more proud than seeing his team grow day by day, redefining excellence in the audiobook industry.

John Marshall Media Latam is the sister company of John Marshall Media Inc, and one of the leading audiobook producers in Latin America. John Marshall Media Latam has 5 Audie nominations for best audiobook production in Spanish, in addition to having participated in at least 20 other nominated productions in English. Among JMM LATAM's clients we proudly include PRH USA, PRH Grupo Editorial, Harper Collins, Disney, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, among a long list of prominent players in the global publishing industry.

Álvaro Ortiz

Audio industry professional in love with the audiobook format. For more than 4 years he was an audiobook producer at Penguin Random House and is now Content Director at Editorial audiolibre, a company he founded to create the audiobooks he always wanted to listen to and with the confidence that the audiobook is the present and future of the publishing industry.

audiolibre is a Mexican audio publishing company founded in 2023. With an experienced team that has developed hundreds of audiobooks and an audio-first vision, it is dedicated to the creation and management of audio catalogs, production and distribution of audiobooks in Spanish, focused on the Mexican and North American markets.

Other activities involving the participant:

Closing of the Audio Forum FIL-2024

Álvaro Ortiz

Audio industry professional in love with the audiobook format. For more than 4 years he was an audiobook producer at Penguin Random House and is now Content Director at Editorial audiolibre, a company he founded to create the audiobooks he always wanted to listen to and with the confidence that the audiobook is the present and future of the publishing industry.

audiolibre is a Mexican audio publishing company founded in 2023. With an experienced team that has developed hundreds of audiobooks and an audio-first vision, it is dedicated to the creation and management of audio catalogs, production and distribution of audiobooks in Spanish, focused on the Mexican and North American markets.

Other activities involving the participant:

Audio Production: Key Insights from Text to Audio