Adis Vila is a global CXO with 30+ years of experience driving success for multibillion-dollar public and private sector organizations. She specializes in navigating highly regulated industries and empowering organizations undergoing transformation. Adis is an expert in international business and regulation, with extensive public policy and foreign affairs experience. As a CXO and senior-level executive, she has led a broad mandate including
strategic planning, corporate development, financial management, and human capital management. Adis brings an informed global, regulatory, and public policy perspective to executive teams and boards.

As a private sector executive, Adis enabled profitable global growth and expansion for $750 agri-business Vigoro. As the company’s Vice President of International Business Development, she drove market access for products in Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, and Scandinavia and negotiated agreements with distributors and business partners. Adis served as Vice President of Government Relations and Regulatory Policy for the Caribbean and Latin America for $22b telecommunications supplier Nortel Networks. In that role, she led international trade, infrastructure development, foreign investment, and social responsibility activities across forty countries. She worked closely with local governments to resolve regulatory issues and extended her skills to advocacy efforts for deregulation and privatization.

In the public sector, Adis has managed complex government agencies in C-level positions. As Secretary (CEO) of the Florida State Department of Administration, she managed a $750m dollar annual budget and directed all human capital functions, including collective bargaining, EEO, compensation and benefits including retirement and health for 125,000 employees across the state. As Assistant Secretary for Management (COO) for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), at the time the largest civilian government agency, Adis managed a $1b dollar annual budget. She led a broad mandate spanning finance, internal controls, information resources management, safety and health, ethics, operations, and human capital including recruitment, people development, and EEO. Adis came into the government as a White House Fellow, one of America’s most prestigious programs for leadership and public service.

Adis has guided organizational transformation in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. At the USDA, she defined a framework to drive a culturally diverse workforce and policies on equal opportunity and civil rights. As the first Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) of the United State Air Force Academy (USAFA), she designed and executed comprehensive DEI strategy to meet federal, Department of Defense, US Air Force, and USAFA policies. Adis was a principal strategic adviser to leadership, helping them meet commitments in workforce diversity, workplace inclusion, and sustainability. She designed and led a program recognized with an Innovation Award by the Profiles in Diversity Journal to enable cadets to develop on-the-job management at multinational companies and learn about different organizational and national cultures.

Adis’ command for driving cross-cultural understanding for businesses is rooted in her personal experience. Cuban-born, Adis came to the US as a political refugee and speaks four languages (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese). She has lived and worked throughout the US, Latin America, and Europe and is a 30-year member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Adis is the beneficiary of prestigious global fellowships including the US- Japan Leadership Fellowship, the Eisenhower Fellowship (US to Argentina), and Rotary International’s Group Study Exchange to India and Graduate Ambassadorial Fellowship to Geneva, Switzerland.

Named a “Leading Latina” by Hispanic Executive and a “Director to Watch” by Directors & Boards, Adis leverages her governance knowledge gained from serving on the Board of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Telephone Bank and on the Advisory Board of Global Asset Management (GAM), a subsidiary of UBS. She holds the NACD’s Board Leadership Fellow designation and is a member of the inaugural class of the Herndon Directors Institute, a joint effort of the Herndon Foundation and NASDAQ. She is 2nd Vice Chair and serves on the Executive, Finance, Nominations, and Governance Committees of the Latino Corporate Directors Association (LCDA). She is a member of Women Corporate Directors and Private Directors Association.

Adis earned her J.D. from The University of Florida, her Diplôme in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and her BA in Mathematics from Rollins College. She is a member of The Florida Bar, the Washington DC Bar, and the International Women’s Forum.