Gemma Martínez, new director of 'El Periódico' in Catalonia

BarcelonaGuard change at the newspaper El Periódico. Gemma Martínez will be the new director, replacing Albert Sáez, who has been leading it for the last six years. The journalist was already deputy director of the masthead and is an economics specialist, after 22 years working at the newspaper Expansión in Valencia, Barcelona, New York, and Madrid, in addition to a period as deputy director of Levante-EMV. Sáez – who, beyond directing the Catalan edition of El Periódico, was also responsible for content for the different media of the publisher Prensa Ibérica since 2024 – will now exclusively maintain this role. Among the group's newspapers are also Diari de Girona and Regió 7 in Catalonia, in addition to numerous local and regional mastheads in Spain such as La Província, El Correo Gallego, Faro de Vigo, La Nueva España, Levante-EMV, or El Correo de Andalucía.

Albert Sáez (Barcelona, 1965) has been the top executive of El Periódico since 2020, after a decade as its deputy director. He then replaced Enric Hernández, and the change occurred just a few months after the Prensa Ibérica group acquired Grupo Zeta, the publisher of this masthead, Sport, and various magazines. Before that, he had also served as deputy director at Avui (1998-2006) and had worked at Televisió de Catalunya, Catalunya Ràdio, and El Observador.

Beyond his career as a journalist and professor at Ramon Llull University, he was appointed during the second tripartite government as secretary of Media of the Department of Culture and Media, of the Generalitat de Catalunya, by Esquerra, and two years later was elected president of the governing council of the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation, a position he held for just over two years.

The change will be effective on June 1st.