Print Is Not Dead—and This Sales Director at Gannett Is Proving It

For Christina Tellez, getting a job at her hometown paper, The Arizona Republic, was like a rite of passage in her family.

“My mom, two brothers, sister, sister-in-law, and niece all worked here in different types of roles,” says Tellez, who started out as a part-time clerk in the newspaper’s circulation department 20 years ago. “I realized this is the place where I wanted to spend my days.”

Since then, Tellez has had countless opportunities to grow and try out different roles and departments at her paper’s parent company, Gannett. Today, she is the Senior Director of Regional Growth and is focused on the company’s largest markets across the U.S.

Here, Tellez talks about her work to grow subscribers, how Gannett’s approach to inclusion, diversity, and equity (ID&E) has evolved since she joined the company, and the next true crime podcast you need to listen to.

After working as a part-time clerk in our state circulation department—which provided newspapers to subscribers in the communities just outside of the Phoenix metro area—I joined our IT group, where I taught myself a new programming language, SQL. 

Later on, I moved to the marketing and sales side of the business to focus on how to best serve our customers and subscribers. This challenged me to think differently about the types of readers and audiences we were serving through digital and print content. Driving subscriptions to move the business forward and produce revenue motivated me in ways that I never felt in previous roles, and I’ve continued growing in this field for more than 10 years.

As the Senior Director of Regional Growth, I am responsible for generating consumer revenue at our 10 largest local markets as well as our national newspaper, USA Today. My team and I partner with editors and their newsrooms, as well as their advertising, distribution, and production teams to optimize opportunities to gain new digital subscribers and sustain print subscriptions. We understand the nuances of each local market, and we build marketing plans that support our newsrooms’ content to engage with existing subscribers and acquire new ones.

I joined Vamos Forward, Gannett’s ERG for Latino employees, and it has brought a stronger sense of community to my work environment. Being a member of this group has helped me find a circle of friends with similar backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences that I can relate to at work. I’ve also learned important lessons from guest speakers, including one who talked about financial planning. Even though I am not a member of our 11 other ERG groups, I have attended some of their sessions and love hearing stories from fellow employees and learning from their experiences.

Gannett ensures that ID&E is a top priority within the company. As a consumer marketing team, we have ID&E goals related to employees internally and readers externally. For example, we created a diversity committee and strive to continue building diverse teams through inclusive hiring practices. We also encourage a day of volunteerism and provide relevant messaging to properly represent the uniqueness of our local markets.

While many of the core values resonate directly with me, the one that carries the most weight is to embrace diversity. When I joined the company 20 years ago, ID&E was not talked about or open for discussion. We used to have a lot of high-level executives who looked exactly like one another. I am proud to say that is not the case today: Our teams strive to look like the communities we serve. My voice is heard, and I am not worried about being able to express my point of view. It is welcomed. It is appreciated. It is the norm.

We are in a time of transition, which excites me because I am driven by new challenges. We are modifying our practices to prioritize local markets, which has allowed us to immerse our consumer marketing efforts in identifying opportunities to grow subscription revenue. I enjoy working across the table from very talented individuals who produce content for communities and help businesses thrive. We are at a pivotal moment for the future of print and digital media.

First and foremost, mi familia es mi vida. Family is a huge part of my life. I was born and raised here in Arizona and I have tons of relatives in the area. This sense of family extends to the broader community, which I support through efforts such as the Latina Giving Circle. Through the organization, I mentor young Latinas and provide them with financial support for personal development opportunities.

The Latino community in general is also a personal priority, which is why I’ve been a member of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s DATOS committee for the last eight years. For over two decades, DATOS has provided comprehensive research on the impact of Latinos to the Arizona economy.

I strongly encourage everyone to take time off to reset, decompress, and rest. And when we are off, we are truly off because we prepare other team members to cover any essential tasks. Throughout the day, especially as we work remotely, I also encourage others to take a short walk, listen to music, dance, play a game—do something that takes attention away from the daily grind.

I just finished the final episode of The Last Ride, an eight-episode, true crime podcast reported by veteran journalists with the Naples Daily News and The Fort Myers News-Press, which are part of the USA TODAY Network. It’s about one of the most disturbing unsolved mysteries in Southwest Florida.