The Prensa Ibérica group has appointed Gemma Martínez (València, 1972) as the new director of El Periódico, a position in which she will succeed the current director, Albert Sáez, starting next June 1, the newspaper reported this Thursday. Martínez was until now deputy director of the newspaper, which she joined in September 2020 from Levante, Prensa Ibérica’s title in València, where she served as deputy director since 2017. The current director, Albert Sáez, will now dedicate himself exclusively to his duties as general content director of Prensa Ibérica, a position he has held for two years.
The professional career of the new director has been linked to the area of economic information. Before working at Levante, Martínez worked for 22 years at the economic newspaper Expansión, where she specialized in banking and finance, from the newsrooms of València, Madrid, and Barcelona. She was also a correspondent in New York between 2007 and 2011, coinciding with the most significant financial crisis of recent decades, a period she explained in the book Saqueo: Quién y cómo provocó la crisis del sistema bancario español, published in 2013. She has also regularly collaborated on radio programs such as La brújula de economía on Onda Cero.
“A key piece”
Since 2020, Martínez has been a key piece in the editorial team of El Periódico formed following Sáez’s appointment in June of that year. The deputy director until now has led the reformulation of the digital product in key areas such as economic information, participating in the first stage of the supplement Activos, currently directed by Martí Saballs, highlights El Periódico.
Likewise, she has launched projects such as Empoderadas, Con P de Planeta, Nodos, and Economía de Cerca, and has promoted local information, with 17 digital editions in the metropolitan area and in Tarragona, cultural information, and sports.
She has also been responsible for implementing new workflows to transform the relationship with readers. Gemma Martínez publishes two weekly newsletters (Economía en Persona and Imperdibles) that have thousands of followers.
For two years, the current director, Albert Sáez, has also been general content director of Prensa Ibérica, a responsibility to which he will now dedicate himself exclusively.
The change takes place as seven years have passed since the acquisition of El Periódico by Prensa Ibérica, a group chaired by Javier Moll that has maintained a commitment to boosting the newspaper editorially and from a technological, commercial, and management perspective.
Prensa Ibérica was this March the second largest media group in Spain in digital audience behind Prisa.
Its main titles (La Nueva España, Faro de Vigo, La Provincia, Levante, Información, Diario de Mallorca or El Correo de Andalucía) are leaders or compete for leadership in 8 of the 17 autonomous communities and regularly publish information about more than 1,300 Spanish towns.
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