Adriana Teresa Letorney is the co-founder & CEO of Visura.co, a global platform for visual storytellers. Adriana is also the co-founder of Scout Film Festival, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that works to celebrate and support filmmakers and visual storytellers aged 24 and under.
An entrepreneur, publisher, and journalist—Adriana is a Techstars alumni, NYU Female Founder Fellow, Mark & Debra Leslie Fellow, and former Founder in Residence at the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute's Leslie eLab. She has a Master in Journalism at NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism (2021), a BFA in Photography at The School of Visual Arts in NYC (2007), and a B.A. in Anthropology from The University of Puerto Rico (2001). Her mentors include Michael Palmer (Winslow Capital), James Watson (Presidio Partners), Jeff Levick (Spotify, Google), and Whitney C. Johnson (National Geographic, New Yorker).
Adriana is an Alumni of the AAJA's Catalyst Program for Founders of Color (2020), NYU's Accelerator Series (2021), American Public Media's Next Challenge Program (2021-22), and Comcast NBCUniversal Lift Labs Accelerator Program powered by Techstars (2022). In the fall of 2022, she announced that Visura will be working with Comcast NBCUniversal and Sky on a pilot program to empower creators worldwide and in underrepresented communities across the United States.
As a writer, she has contributed to numerous publications, including The New York Times, and Huffington Post. As a juror, nominator, and/or reviewer, she has served for the Alexia Grant at the University of Syracuse, World Press Photo, Prix Pictet, CPOY, The New York Portfolio Review (2011-present), Northern Course Short, New York Photo Awards, The Google Photography Prize, Photoville's 'The Fence', amongst many others.
Adriana has been a panelist and guest lecturer at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Missouri School of Journalism, The S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, Photo Plus Expo, The School of Visual Arts, and The New School in NY.
Numerous publications have highlighted her career, including The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, PDN, NY Daily News, The Daring Magazine, SevenDays, amongst others.
Numerous publications have highlighted her career, including The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, PDN, NY Daily News, The Daring Magazine, SevenDays, amongst others.
Her work aims to re-envisioning the infrastructure, the future of work, and the marketplace for visual communication. The Visura platform utilizes a creator economy take on traditional agencies and social media platforms to empower visual creators with entrepreneurial creator tools, a curated global marketplace, and enterprise services for publishers and brands to effectively connect, network, and transact directly with freelancers worldwide.
Her mission is to foster media literacy across the internet by encouraging fair trade and economic mobility for creators in an effort to elevate premium visuals across the internet. The Visura platform is an alternative solution to stock agencies.
The platform is available for publishers, small businesses, and local nonprofit organizations worldwide and across the US looking to connect and license directly from freelance visual storytellers to grow and engage audiences faster.
Throughout the years, Adriana has worked with leaders, creators, publishers, editors, and founders, among other professionals to offer an alternative ecosystem that powers sourcing, managing, licensing, and distribution of visual communication.
Her mission is to build a web3 infrastructure that fosters inclusivity, sustainability, merit-based opportunities, professional skill development, and media literacy. In doing so, she hopes to empower the shift away from stock agencies and towards the creator economy for visual communication.
Her mission is to foster media literacy across the internet by encouraging fair trade and economic mobility for creators in an effort to elevate premium visuals across the internet. The Visura platform is an alternative solution to stock agencies.
The platform is available for publishers, small businesses, and local nonprofit organizations worldwide and across the US looking to connect and license directly from freelance visual storytellers to grow and engage audiences faster.
Throughout the years, Adriana has worked with leaders, creators, publishers, editors, and founders, among other professionals to offer an alternative ecosystem that powers sourcing, managing, licensing, and distribution of visual communication.
Her mission is to build a web3 infrastructure that fosters inclusivity, sustainability, merit-based opportunities, professional skill development, and media literacy. In doing so, she hopes to empower the shift away from stock agencies and towards the creator economy for visual communication.
"90% of the information that the brain retains is visual. Visuals matter. Tech platforms, newsrooms, magazines, brands, and other publishers need to work together to empower visual creators worldwide and elevate unique, premium visuals across the internet. Publishers and brands will authentically connect with audiences faster. Audiences will have better access to unique, authentic content that stems from perspective, skill and facts."
EARLY YEARS (2007-2013)
Adriana Teresa worked at The powerHouse Arena (2007-8), an experience which culminated in her first curatorial project titled Song of Myself Exhibition—a group show that presented personal visuals about our collective existence.
She went on to produce the FotoVisura International Pavilion (2008-2013) in New York, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, and Australia. In 2010, she served as co-producer of the inaugural GuatePhoto International Festival. She has been a guest curator for The New York Photo Festival (2008-2011), Lucie Foundation (2010), Photoville (2012-13), and GuatePhoto Festival, amongst others.
In 2011, Honorable Charles B. Rangel of the New York State House of Representatives added Adriana Teresa's Dia Exhibition at The New York Photo Festival to the Congressional Records in recognition of the impact it had in honoring the Puerto Rican photographers who documented their community in New York from 1960 to 1980.
During 2008-9, Adriana Teresa assisted Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas during a project called The PR Flag and its identity, which was part of a major exhibition in Parc La Villette Museum in Paris, France from April 7-July 6, 2009.
In 2009, she launched Visura Magazine, an online publication that featured personal projects by some of the world's top visual journalists, including Larry Fink, Lauren Greenfield, Nina Berman, amongst many others.
EDUCATION
Adriana completed a BA in Anthropology (2001) at the University of Puerto Rico and a BFA in photography (2007) at the School of Visual Arts NY. While attending the SVA, Adriana worked at Harper’s Bazaar Magazine (2006), Bruce Silverstein Gallery (2006), and Rolling Stone Magazine (2007); as well as, served as personal assistant to Sylvia Plachy, Suzanne Opton, and Donna Ferrato.In 2021, she completed a Master's in American Journalism at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. The same year, she joined NYU's Entrepreneurship Institute, where she completed the LaunchPad, an award-winning immersive 9-week accelerator for scalable startups led by NYU students. During the NYU VC PitchFest, Visura was awarded "Most Investable Startup."
Born & raised in Puerto Rico, Adriana Teresa lives between Vermont and New York. Currently, she is an NYU Female Founder Fellow, and Founder in Residence.