Welcome to season 2, episode 26 of the Today is the Day Changemakers Podcast.
This week my guest is Hugo Balta, an experienced award-winning, broadcast & digital media news executive directing growth and innovation in several divisions and businesses in the U.S. and Latin America.
Hugo’s nearly 30-years of experience include leadership roles with storied news networks like NBC, ABC, CBS, and Telemundo.
Hugo is the owner/publisher of the Latino News Network (LNN) – the only English language news and information outlet focused on serving Hispanics-Latinos in New England. LNN also amplifies the work of others in elevating the visibility and voices of a community often absent in newsrooms and news coverage.
Hugo is also a writer and associate editor for The Chicago Reporter producing stories focused on covering race, ethnicity, and culture in the third largest market in the U.S.
In addition to being an accomplished journalist, Hugo is the only president to serve two terms in the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ (NAHJ) history. In 2016, he was inducted into the NAHJ Hall of Fame, and as part of his acceptance founded the Hortencia Zavala Scholarship – a not-for-profit to help students with the high cost of education.
Hugo was born in Patterson, NJ and is the proud son of Peruvian immigrants. He shares that growing up he felt like a child of two worlds, as he had the responsibility at a young age of bridging the language barrier between his parents and the outside world.
There were many times in his career that Hugo could have chosen to blend in, have a big title, and hefty paycheck, but that would have caused him to have to stray from his beliefs and convictions. When those situations would arise, he would think about what his mom had to go through working in a sweatshop or that he never saw his dad much as he worked 2-3 jobs 7 days a week. His parents worked hard to be able to provide Hugo with the incredible opportunities that he has been able to leverage.
From messaging around never giving up or compromising your beliefs to don’t listen to all the noise, Hugo has so much insight to offer.
Next week my guest is Charlene Gorzela, Podcast Host, Grief Recovery Now and Grief Recovery Method Specialist. After 26 years as the CEO of a successful Professional Staffing Services firm in the city of Chicago, she knew that the next chapter would be another important one for her. She has always had the passion in the human potential movement and knew that this next chapter in her life would be something unprecedented and extraordinary. What happened was something that even in her wildest dreams, she would not even have guessed that she would be doing.
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