Profile: Julian Posada

By Mary Lynn F. Jones

First Published: December 2007

Personal Data

Date of birth: Nov. 13, 1968.

Grew up in: East Lansing, Mich.

Family: Married, Gina; sons, Sebastian, 4, and Lucas, 2.

Hobbies/Diversions: Avid runner, including marathons in Stockholm and Chicago in 2007, and gardening.

Career: 1992-93, national marketing director, Campus Outreach Opportunity League, Minneapolis; 1993-95, deputy director, Chicago office, and national director of corporate affairs, Public Allies, Chicago; 1997-99, assistant vice president, auto loans marketing, director of business development, Citibank, Bogotá, Colombia; 2000-01, general manager and director of marketing for Querico.com and EthnicGrocer.com, Chicago; 2001-02, principal, J.C. Williams Group, Chicago; 2002-03, director of sales and marketing, Exito and Hoy, Chicago; 2003-04, director of sales and marketing, Hoy, Los Angeles; 2004-present, general manager, Hoy, Chicago.

Connections: Hoy, 435 N. Michigan Ave. TT2200, Chicago, Ill. 60611, (312) 527-8429, jposada@hoyllc.com

Julian Posada doesn't like to sit still, whether he's running marathons or expanding Hoy, the daily Spanish-language newspaper published in Chicago and Los Angeles by the Tribune Co. in Chicago.

Since joining the newspaper industry five years ago, Posada, 39, helped Tribune launch Hoy in Chicago in 2003 to replace Exito, the company's weekly Spanish-language paper. He then headed to Los Angeles to help Tribune start an edition of Hoy there just four months later.

Returning to Hoy in Chicago as the paper's general manager in 2006, Posada is focused on increasing its growth in the suburbs, where slightly more than half of the city's Hispanic population lives. As a result, Hoy's overall circulation grew in September from 45,000 to 62,000 copies Mondays through Thursdays, from 60,000 to 100,000 copies on Fridays and from 211,000 copies to 280,000 copies for the weekend edition over the course of this year.

This summer, he also led the creation, over an eight-week period, of Padres de Hoy, a bimonthly parenting magazine aimed at Hispanic women. The first, 16-page issue was published in August. About 90 percent of the articles are locally focused.

"We have to be a reflection of the people we serve," he says. Padres de Hoy will publish monthly starting next month with its current 160,000-copy print run.

Posada says working for Hoy allows him to "do a social good but at the same time work on an enterprise." Before joining Tribune, he worked for nonprofits in Chicago and Minneapolis. He serves on several community boards, including those of the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago and Metropolitan YMCA.

Five Questions
 

1. What's the most challenging aspect of your job?

Stay abreast of all the changes in the media industry, as well as changing consumer consumption. Within the Hispanic market, generational and nationality-specific nuances make the work especially challenging. The task is to fulfill the needs and expectations of many different segments of a very diverse audience.

2. What's the most rewarding part of your job?

Seeing the organization execute on all fronts, from editorial to sales to marketing to production to distribution; seeing all the pieces work to deliver a great newspaper; and watching the people behind these activities have fun and grow professionally.

3. In what ways do you think your current position will change over the next five years?

I don't know if it will change as much as it will increase its degree of focus on profit growth, flawless execution and exceeding the expectations of our readers and advertisers.

4. What's the best career advice anyone ever gave you?

One of my mentors gave me the following quote by Helen Keller many, many years ago, and it has stuck with me and has been part of my life: "One should never consent to creep if one feels the impulse to soar."

5. What three things would you change about the newspaper industry?

• Try to work more on instinct and gut feel than analysis.
• Focus on the positive - the work we do every day to contribute to people's lives - instead of what we cannot control.
• Review and invest in short-term, midterm and long-term projects, not just those that affect the current fiscal year, in order to better serve the changing needs of customers.