Featured Speakers

Born and raised on Curaçao, Tamira La Cruz, MBA, CEO of MarkStra Caribbean, started her career as a marketing executive with a leading banking group in the Netherlands Antilles, working throughout the Dutch Caribbean. As a consultant, she has completed research, corporate strategy, marketing,   trade development and internet/e-commerce assignments for both domestic and global firms throughout the Caribbean, in the U.S., Belgium, Spain and Chile. 

She has lectured and published extensively on strategy, marketing, management and global business issues, both locally and elsewhere in the region. Selling knowledge services and innovation across borders holds her particular interest.


Ms. La Cruz holds an MBA degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BSBA degree from Boston University. Ms. La Cruz is a Burke Certified focus group moderator, a board member of the Curacao Chamber of Commerce and Industry, former president of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International Curacao. 

Mirto Murray, esq., has practiced law in the Dutch Caribbean and Surinam for the past 15 years, using Curacao as base, most recently as partner of SMS Attorneys. Early in his career he served  as Vice-President and then President of the Curacao Bar Association. His law degree is from the University of Amsterdam.

He has served on numerous important committees and board, often related to legal issues in the Dutch Caribbean and Surinam. He has been the trustee for the bankruptcy for  the Dutch Caribbean Airlines N.V. and an observer on behalf of the Curacao Minister of Justice to the trials related to the "Decembermoorden" in Surinam.

He is a prolific writer, whose work has often been published in legal and scientific publications, as well as local newspapers. His most recent publication is the "Two Masters" written with Karel Frielink, esq.  

Mr. Murray, who hails from Surinam, has also lectured law to numerous full-and part-time students in Curacao and has made many media appearances to speak on legal issues.

Clark Russel is the CEO of IBIS Management Associates Inc. the leading international banking consulting and technology company in the Caribbean and Americas.  IBIS Management helps major banks in more than 25 countries to become "profitably efficient" in their operations.

Clark founded IBIS Management Associates Inc. back in 2001, as an advisor and provider of Straight Through Processing solutions for the international banking sector. IBIS Management is the creator of the award winning Alchemy Payment Processing suite of products that provide Internet Banking, Mobile Banking and a back office payment processing infrastructure for banks. Banks that use the Alchemy solution transform their manually driven back-office departments into highly efficient and fast paced operations with increased profitability.

After completing his Engineering studies, Clark began his career in the Netherlands where he joined the international systems department of the ABN AMRO Bank in Amsterdam.  In this role, he laid down the initial blue prints for the Global Access Network of the Bank, a proprietary integrated communications network connecting all world wide ABN AMRO Branches. He went on to hold Sr. positions in the Bank where he played leading roles in the creation of regional ATM and POS payment processing networks for the Bank in the Caribbean region over a six year period.

In 1998 Clark continued his career at PriceWaterhouseCoopers as a Sr. Management Consultant, where he was involved in implementing cost management models at major national telecommunication companies in countries such as the UK, Israel, Holland and his native Dutch Antilles.

Clark and IBIS Management associates are members of the International Financial Services Association (IFSA), the Caribbean Association of Indigenous Banks (CAIB), SWIFT, and actively provide thought leadership and best practice to leading Central, Private and Commercial Banks.  Clark and IBIS Management are constantly at the forefront of leading innovative projects in banking technology while at the same time making contributions to the local and regional community through the Banks-4-kids charity foundation.

Clark is a native of the lovely island of Curacao in the Dutch Caribbean, is married and the father of three sons and a passionate sailor.