Last year, after a decade at Walton Isaacson managing major-league clients like Lexus, American Airlines, Home Depot, McDonald’s, and JPMorgan Chase, Juan Bonilla was named president of the prestigious, minority-owned advertising agency, which specializes in marketing to the LGBTQ+, Black, and Hispanic communities.
When Walton Isaacson was named a 2026 Ad Age A-List Standout, Bonilla says it was one of his proudest moments. “This was a year when multicultural budgets were slashed, LGBTQ+ rights and immigrant communities came under renewed attack, and companies across America were being pressured to retreat from commitments to inclusion. We didn’t retreat.”
Bonilla grew up in the Bronx, and he says coming of age as a gay Puerto Rican American there wasn’t always easy. “For a long time, those worlds felt like contradictions I had to navigate. Eventually, I realized the challenge wasn't choosing between them; it was having the courage to claim all of them.”
“Never mistake being pushed to the margins for being marginal,” he advises the queer community and beyond. “We are still coming into our power, and the future belongs to those willing to recognize that we aren’t a niche, a quota, or a political position; we are culture, we are growth, and we are the future.” @waltonisaacson
