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 Lisa
Quiroz... |
If you looked Lisa Quiroz '83 up in her senior yearbook, the activities below her name--Education for Action, Harvard-Radcliffe RAZA, and the Chicano Women's Caucus among them--would suggest how important community has been to her. Now she is publisher of People en Español--the Spanish-language spin-off of People--and that priority hasn't changed.
 and
her magazine. |
After graduation, Quiroz became a Harvard-Radcliffe admissions officer, working with the minority recruitment team she had assisted as an undergraduate, until then-dean of the College Fred Jewett encouraged her to pursue an M.B.A. In 1990, just before she graduated from Harvard Business School, Time Inc. was recruiting on campus. Quiroz applied for a position on their consumer marketing staff, hoping, she says, that a career in publishing might allow her to have a positive social impact.
In 1994, while visiting her old elementary school, she noticed that current events were still being presented in much the same way as when she had been a student there. This observation led to the development of Time for Kids, a weekly current-events magazine for fourth- through sixth-graders. Quiroz became its general manager and de facto publisher while continuing to work on youth consumer marketing projects. The new magazine helped promote social action just as she had hoped. "Last Christmas," she recalls, "I read an article in the New York Times about kids in Brooklyn who, after reading Time for Kids, started a letter-writing campaign to companies that were [exploiting] child labor in Pakistan. It was such a terrific example of the power of a magazine to motivate children, get them involved, and really spark their curiosities and passions. It was a great moment! I called up the editor at eight in the morning and said 'This is why we do this!'"
Last August Quiroz was offered the opportunity to join People en Español, which had debuted as a quarterly in the fall of 1996. Leaving Time for Kids was difficult, but she knew that she could bring a valuable perspective, as a Latina, to the business side of People en Español. Her primary focus so far has been to develop the magazine's circulation. Currently available only on newsstands, People en Español will become a monthly with the February 1998 issue, which is scheduled to make its appearance on January 12. At present, its paid circulation is around 200,000 newsstand buyers; with an estimated 8 readers per copy, however, the actual readership is approximately 1.6 million.
Quiroz intends to increase both these figures, using feedback from readers' letters and from general market research. She believes People en Español complements the content of People, so the magazines are not competitors; while People appeals to a broad audience--including many Latinos, she says--People en Español specifically targets Latino readers. "Both the editor and I feel a unique mission to give the Latino community a voice," she says, "to give it a publication that reflects Latino images, Latino interests, Latino culture. Believe it or not, there's no magazine like that right now in this country" even though the Latino population in the United States is roughly 30 million, whereas there are five major magazines targeting a teenage population of only 25 million. "We are really creating the print market for the Hispanic community," she emphasizes. "I thought this was a great opportunity not just to build the magazine, but to build the whole category. To have the resources of Time Inc., to have the incredible name of People magazine, and to be able to create something special and unique for my own community is a great opportunity."
~ Marcine Perry