Vanessa is a former TV anchor with a passion for bilingual storytelling and community engagement. Passionate about equity, inclusion and thoughtful diversity initiatives, she is fueled by the opportunity to work with professionals from around the country to help create a better, more sustainable environment for diversity initiatives in storytelling. Vanessa has made a career out of working to improve diversity of coverage in newsrooms through mentorship and leadership. One of her largest initiatives is the creation of Noticiero Móvil, a bilingual news program aimed at improving coverage of Latinx issues in northern Nevada. Under her leadership, the program became a sustainable emphasis of study for students at the Reynolds School of Journalism - https://www.unr.edu/journalism/degrees/undergraduate-emphases/spanish-language-media. She is known for her TEDx talk titled "I'm Mexican, Does that Change Your Assumptions about Me?" In the talk, she provides tactical tips on managing biases and preconceived notions.

Honors and Awards: Two national Edward R. Murrow Awards

Languages Spoken: Spanish, English

Topic Expertise: Immigration, Latinx bilingual community outreach, DEI strategies

Local Expertise: Nevada, northern California

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