• by Ray Schultz , May 6, 2021

The Atlantic has named Andrea Valdez, founding editor of The 19^th, an independent nonprofit news organization, as senior vice president of audience strategy, a newly created role. 

Valdez will join the senior leadership team at the magazine later this month. 

In the new role, Valdez will collaborate with newsroom leadership and product, engineering, growth and B2B teams to build audience across platforms.

In 2020, Valdez helped launch The 19^th, a site that focuses on the intersection of gender, politics and policy.

She has also served as editor in chief at The Texas Observer, editor of Wired.com, and editor of Texas Monthly’s website. She is the author of “How to Be a Texan: The Manual.” 

Praising her as “one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with,” Atlantic CEO Nick Thompson said Valdez has “a profound understanding of editorial and has been an editor in chief. But she also has a profound understanding of business, and what it takes to thrive in media.” 

In April, The Atlantic announced the hires of Jefferson Rabb as VP of engineering; and Kas Mayanga, the publisher’s first VP of information security.

The Atlantic now has 770,000 subscribers, an all-time high.