Leonardo Gómez Gómez is an Executive Creative Director with over 20 years of experience creating content and building brands across Latin America. He blends storytelling, culture, fashion, and technology to turn ideas into meaningful experiences. Passionate about AI-powered creativity, he uses tools like Midjourney, Kling, and Suno to accelerate production and innovation. He is the founder of Cumbia SCH, a creative lab where culture and branding meet. He believes great creativity should move people and businesses forward.
How many years have you been a judge?
This is my first year!
What excited you about judging for the Telly Awards?
As a newcomer, it’s very exciting to be able to see and evaluate the creative and narrative work of all the talented participants in the festival. As someone passionate about creativity and content, it’s a great opportunity to learn about different perspectives and be inspired by them, and then it’s a great challenge.
What was your first job in the industry? What did it teach you?
In my early days I was part of an internal communications area, carrying out the communication of a total change of processes within the company, and as a great lesson I always carry with me “Putting humans at the center of everything”.
What project are you most proud to have worked on?
There’s a recent one that was a collaboration between two brands I’m close to, called “El Milagrito,” where we achieved a great fusion of Peruvian and Mexican cultures. The result is a unique garment and exciting content for the public.
What’s the most challenging part about your job and/or the industry?
For me, it’s always about connection, that connection with humans and their emotions. Now, it’s a difficult challenge between the artificial and the real, something that makes it more exciting every day: overcoming algorithms and data to achieve a real connection.
What do you look for to determine excellence in video?
The connection, above and beyond production, must be based on an idea that seeks to connect with people, and how that idea is narrated and accompanied by audio and video photography. And at the heart of it all is the emotion it seeks to share with the world.
What are your current roles and responsibilities and what do you love most about your job?
Currently I lead the creative process of 2 creative agencies and as founder of Cumbia, my personal consulting firm, I carry out ideation and creation of communication campaigns and in some free time, art direction for video creation.
What initiatives or projects are you working on now that excite you?
The creation of two fashion projects, where I participate from the conceptualization of the collection to the creative process that will bring them to the world. (How to sell them).
Do you have any specific practices you lean on to spark creativity?
Watch movies, read, and consume content. Feed yourself daily with different perspectives.
What inspired you to pursue your career path?
Passion, knowing how to communicate to people, connecting them with a message, with an idea is a daily challenge, that’s what keeps me in love with what I do.
In your experience, what is a significant change you are seeing happen in the video, television, and/or film industry, and what insight can you share about how to navigate it?
The creation of content from scratch, the artificial intelligence that can now do it, and on the other hand, its misuse. The change is already happening, and I believe we must embrace the hybrid production of all audiovisual content as a daily practice. We must face this challenge by placing the idea at the center and enhancing it with the knowledge acquired in practice to revitalize everything.
