Meet Gwen Aviles

An ongoing series from The Alumni Society spotlighting its impressive members

 Alma mater: Columbia, Cornell, & Northwestern | Location: New York City

Where are you from?

I’m from Brooklyn, New York. I’m half-Puerto Rican from my dad’s side and Lebanese and Irish from my mom’s side!

What do you do?

I work at NewsBreak, a local news app, helping our thousands of content creators tell stories about their communities, devising content policy, and planning community events. Before transitioning to tech, I worked as a journalist.

What is a career accomplishment you’re proud of?

I recently planned an event for our NYC-area content creators that included a panel I moderated on local news and content creation. We had some really great speakers on the panel, including fellow Latino Ed García Conde, the founder of the Bronx’s largest hyperlocal publication, Welcome2theBronx. The panelists spoke about the importance of community news and dispelling stereotypes with their content creation, and it was a very inspiring conversation.

In the spirit of giving and receiving, what do you seek from this network and what do you want to contribute?

I’m looking forward to building my network and connecting with so many incredibly talented Latino professionals. I would like to eventually take my content and storytelling skills to a space beyond news and I’m specifically interested in travel tech opportunities. I’m here to support you all in any way I can, including with anything content and social media related (i.e. if you want to discuss leveraging LinkedIn with content creation about your industry, etc.)!

What is a fun fact about you that you’d like to share with the network?

I’m a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do! I haven’t done it in years, but I still enjoy punching on a bag for stress relief.

Connect with Gwen Aviles.