Monique Manso

VP, Category Lead Beauty, CPG, Food & Beverage, QSR Hearst Magazine

Monique Manso is a bilingual/bicultural media executive who thrives at the intersection of content development, audience development and marketing/product innovation. A pioneer in developing large-scale, multiplatform, experiences for media companies, consumer brands and agencies, Monique has an unparalleled understanding of what it takes to grow and sustain a compelling brand in today’s complex media and experiential landscape. She’s a leading authority on evolving multicultural audiences, with expertise in the Latino/ Latinx and African American segments. She is a proud champion of diversity in the workplace and leads with an entrepreneurial and inclusive style that fosters accountability, urgency, and performance.

Monique recently joined Hearst Magazines as the VP, Category Lead of the Beauty, CPG, Food & Beverage, and QSR categories. With an extensive background in consumer-packaged goods, Monique is responsible for overseeing a group of Senior Sales Executives, aiming to strategically stake Hearst as a leader across these industries.

Monique comes to Hearst off the back of her time as CRO of Sundial Media Group where she had oversight of over $100MM in revenue across ESSENCE, Refinery 29, Beautycon, and AfroPunk. She was charged with driving the success of the company’s overall revenue growth, and the effectiveness of its experiential, licensing and media revenue strategy. She led the teams responsible for the generation of business from new customer development, strategic account growth/management and partnerships.

Prior to joining Essence Ventures, Monique served as VP, Global Brand Partnerships at WME Fashion, where she was charged with leading and overseeing all sponsorship sales models, revenue and GTM strategies for the entire WME Fashion portfolio of assets. These assets included, NYFW, IMG Models, The Wall Group, ProdN, Focus and Art & Commerce. Works with C Suite marketing executives across various industries on the development of strategic initiatives and partnerships.

Through M2Exponential, her strategic consulting practice, Monique advises new and established companies on sales strategy, marketing strategy, business development, live events, M&A, and setting up sales and marketing operations. She draws upon her blue-chip experience to guide marketers, agencies, media companies, and content creators in both the US Hispanic and general market space. Her recent work includes the development of a strategic sales strategy for a Spanish-language streaming media company; the creation of content, programming, and production (as well as strategic advisory services) for a nonprofit in the Latinx community; and the assessment of operations and growth potential related to the acquisition of a media agency.

Monique began her practice after steering People en Español through an extended period of growth and innovation that bolstered the brand’s position as the most trusted voice in Hispanic culture, with digital/mobile experiences and live events that raised the bar for audience engagement and understanding. As Vice President and Publisher, Monique grew People en Español from a $3M print entity to a $20M omnichannel brand while confronting secular changes in the industry as well as People’s transition from Time Inc. to Meredith and eventually Dotdash Meredith.

When she left the company in 2022, Dotdash Meredith was firmly entrenched as the market leader, reaching 30M US Hispanics (75% of the market), including 13M Millennials. Meredith Latino, the business group that combined People en Español with legacy Meredith brands including Siempre Mujer, Ser Padres, Ser Padres Espera, and Parents Latina, was enjoying digital growth that far outpaced declines in the print business. Monique’s leadership in developing large, multiplatform marketing initiatives was key to that success, featuring new content alignment opportunities and marketing franchises at peopleenespanol.com, and new platforms targeting cross-cultural bilingual Millennial Latinos. Monique also was Executive Producer for two of the industry’s largest consumer-facing annual events: Festival People en Español (drew 20K people a year) and Poderosas LIVE (the only event of its kind centered on empowerment and careerism for Latinas).

Monique’s success at People en Español followed years of industry leadership at Time Inc. and Condé Nast, where she instituted multiplatform buying on a large scale and oversaw sales teams that handled the largest advertisers. This agency-style approach was a template for her success at People en Español and stemmed from her earlier work at Ogilvy & Mather, where she helped launch the revolutionary concept to ad buying on behalf of IBM. She began her career at Ammirati Puris Lintas Worldwide, where she was focused on global and pan-regional media planning and buying for the while spearheading new business efforts and creating and facilitating training workshops across the Latin America region.

Monique studied Business Administration and Marketing at Pace University in New York. She is fluent in English and Spanish.