| Monica Cecilia Lozano | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 21, 1956 Los Angeles |
| Occupation | Publisher/Corporate Executive |
| Known for | Granddaughter of Ignacio E. Lozano, Sr., founder of La Opinión |
| Title | Publisher/CEO, La Opinión Senior VP of Newspapers, Impremedia LLC |
| Predecessor | José I. Lozano (brother) |
| Board member of | University of California University of Southern California Bank of America Walt Disney Company UnionBanCal Corporation National Council of La Raza Weingart Foundation President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board |
| Spouse | Marcelo Centanino (divorced) |
| Children | Santiago and Gabriela |
| Parents | Ignacio E. Lozano, Jr. and Marta Lozano |
| Website | |
| La Opinión | |
Monica Cecilia Lozano (b.21 July 1956, Los Angeles) is an American newspaper editor, the publisher and Chief Executive Officer of La Opinión and senior vice president of its parent company, Impremedia, LLC.[1] Based in Los Angeles, La Opinión is the largest Spanish publication in the United States.[2] She is a member of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.[3][4] She was appointed by the California State Legislature to join Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commission on the 21st Century Economy.[5]
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Lozano is one of four children of first generation Mexican-Americans, Ignacio E. Lozano, Jr. and his Arizona-born wife, Marta Navarro.[6] Her paternal grandfather, Ignacio E. Lozano, Sr., a famous Mexican journalist was born on the border of Mexico and Texas.[6] He went to San Antonio, where Lozano's father was born, and in 1913 founded La Prensa, which became the largest, if not the first, Spanish daily publication in the United States.[6][7] La Prensa sold copies in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. In 1926, with much help from his wife, Lozano's grandfather founded La Opinión in Los Angeles, where La Prensa had had a particularly large following.[6]
Lozano's father studied journalism at Notre Dame University and, in 1953, took over La Opinión after the death of her grandfather.[6] Meanwhile, her grandmother, Alicia Elizondo de Lozano, returned to Texas to keep La Prensa in business.[6]
Lozano was raised with her siblings in Newport Beach, Orange County, California.[6] Although Marta Lozano had studied literature for about three years at UCLA before marriage, she was a stay-at-home mom to Lozano and her siblings, while their father commuted to L.A. to work on the paper.[6] In 1976, Ignacio E. Lozano, Jr. was appointed US Ambassador to El Salvador by President Gerald Ford.[6]
Lozano first attended school in Corona del Mar, but graduated from Santa Catalina School in Monterey in 1974.[6] She then studied sociology and political science at the University of Oregon.[6] While there, she became interested in the new field of women's studies and worked for the Eugene, Oregon-based feminist newspaper Women's Press.[6] Leaving the university in 1976, Lozano traveled with a friend through Mexico and South America.[6] She lived in San Francisco, where she earned a degree in printing technology at the City College.[6][8][9] She also worked on a couple of bilingual newspapers.[6] Then in November 1985, she went to work with her family as managing editor of La Opinión.[6] Early in the following year, her brother, José I. Lozano, the paper's publisher at that time, sent her to the Poynter Institute for a two-week intensive training course in media management.[10]
Lozano married South American Marcelo Centanino in 1986.[10] From this marriage, she has two children: a son, Santiago (b.1987), and a daughter, Gabriela (b.1989).[10] Before the middle of the 1990s, Lozano and Centanino were divorced.[10]
Lozano began to work at La Opinión at a time when AIDS was still a taboo issue, especially among the predominantly Catholic Latino communities, and she fought hard against a lot of prejudice and fear to address the disease.[10] She was also alarmed by the high rates of infant mortality among Hispanic women and she worked on a lot of stories covering prenatal care.[10] Lozano also oversaw an increase of what she called "proactive"[10] political journalism. California Governor Pete Wilson and Senator Barbara Boxer were interviewed in its pages.[10]
She became publisher of El Eco del Valle (in the San Fernando Valley) in 1990.[10] Her husband, previously working in the circulation department of La Opinión, went to organize the distribution of El Eco del Valle.[10] Around the same time, Lozano was promoted to Associate Publisher, under her brother, at La Opinión.[10]
Lozano has been on the board of directors at the Walt Disney Company since 2000.[1][7] She is also a director of Bank of America.[1][7] She is on the board of Southern California's Weingart Foundation and the National Council of La Raza.[1][3] She is a member of the Board of Regents for the University of California and the Board of Trustees at the University of Southern California.[1] Since 2001, she has been on the board at UnionBanCal Corporation.[11] From 2002-2005, she was a director of the Tenet Healthcare Corporation.[11]