Alex Mena has been promoted to the top news leadership job at the Miami Herald, becoming the newspaper’s first immigrant executive editor.
On board the company for three decades, the Nicaraguan-born 50-year-old journalist worked his way up the newsroom, starting out answering phones as a teenager, eventually becoming a reporter and editor, leading the sports and metro news departments, and el Nuevo Herald.
Mena helped direct the Herald’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the 2021 Surfside condo collapse.
Due to his leadership and experience, he was elevated to managing editor of the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald in 2022.
In his new role, in addition to being executive editor of the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, Mena will also oversee the executive editor of the Bradenton Herald as Florida Regional Editor for McClatchy, the parent company of the three Florida publications.
Mena has been overseeing all three newsrooms in an interim role since February.