Maribel Perez Wadsworth

About Maribel Perez Wadsworth

Dedicated change agent. Digital media and C-suite executive. Veteran journalist. Board Director.Maribel Perez Wadsworth has just completed a 26-year career at Gannett, where she began as a reporter in 1996 and left at the end of 2022 as President of Gannett Media and Publisher of USA TODAY, a nationwide network with more than journalists at 230 local news organizations. In 2015, she was named Gannett’s first chief strategy and transformation officer. Under Wadsworth’s leadership, Gannett newsrooms have been recognized with five Pulitzer Prizes in the past five years. In 2016, then-U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker appointed Wadsworth to a two-year term on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She is the current chair of the News/Media Alliance, president of the International News Media Association, serves on the board of directors of the Associated Press, Pew Research Center and Skillshare, and is a trustee of the University of Miami, her alma mater. Throughout her career, Wadsworth has championed journalistic excellence, business model transformation, innovations in digital storytelling and continual experimentation with emerging technologies. Wadsworth\'s commitment to diversity was recognized in 2019 with the Robert G. McGruder award for diversity leadership by the News Leaders Association. BACKGROUNDAfter 15 years working in a variety of roles at community newspapers — from reporter to managing editor — I joined the News Department of Gannett\'s U.S. Community Publishing division as Digital News Executive in 2009.As VP/Audience Development, I worked with the President of Gannett\'s U.S. Community Publishing Division to plan and execute our top strategic initiatives. Those include: development and implementation of a new subscription model for most of Gannett\'s local publishing markets; introduction of a new local edition of USA TODAY which has added significant value to local subscribers and leading local implementation of an all-platform digital relaunch across 81 markets.As SVP/Strategic Initiatives, I created our division\'s Local Digital Solutions Network, a digital product development group whose mission it is to build solutions that help our local media properties maintain a competitive edge while growing revenue and audience. Building on that team, we are now creating the Gannett Innovation Lab to incubate internally-generated ideas for new products and services. Named Gannett\'s Chief Strategy Officer in June 2015 and Publisher of USA TODAY in 2018.

Experience

1. Member Board of Directors

   The Associated Press

   Apr 2021 — Present · New York, NY, US

   Advancing the power of facts across the globe.

Education

• University of Miami

  BS/News-Editorial Journalism, Communications

  1990 — 1993

Skills

• Journalism
• Copy Editing
• Publishing
• SEO
• News Writing
• Online Marketing
• Breaking News
• New Media
• Publications
• Storytelling
• Digital Media
• Newsletters
• Magazines
• Editorial
• Leadership
• Newspapers
• Newspaper
• Content Strategy