Chris Rosas, vice president of finance for Bumble, and Joe Ruiz, managing editor for CBS News, have joined the San Antonio Report’s board of directors. They will bring their expertise in startups, finance and news starting in the fall.
Rosas and Ruiz join eight other local leaders, including Chairman A.J. Rodriguez, in overseeing the work of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit local news organization.
“We are very fortunate to welcome both Chris and Joe to our board,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “My colleague, Laura Saldivar Luna, has done an excellent job working with members of our board to identify and recruit incredibly talented, knowledgeable and diverse candidates to our team.”
Saldivar Luna, the longest-serving member of the board, ran the recruitment process and said Rosas and Ruiz were chosen based on their qualifications in two primary focus areas generated by the board and San Antonio Report staffers: finance and journalism.
“Both of our new board members have very, very deep local ties, but they both work at a national level,” Saldivar Luna said, adding that both Rosas and Ruiz are excited about giving back to the San Antonio community with their board service.
“They’ve had super accomplished careers, and they also ask these brilliant questions,” Saldivar Luna said. “I think that the caliber of questions they’ll ask is really going to take us to the next level for our strategy and our impact.”
Rosas is a native of Corpus Christi, but was raised in San Antonio. He has worked at Rackspace and at Clear Channel Communications before his position at Bumble, a social network app used for online dating, friendship building and professional networking. He also serves on the Bexar County Family Justice Center board of directors. Rosas said he’s been an avid reader of the San Antonio Report since its founding in 2012.
“You’re getting a lot more in-depth articles about things that aren’t necessarily headline news items for the TV or newspaper,” Rosas said. “I think [the Report] just has a way of targeting specific issues … that are very relevant to people that read it.”
Rosas’ finance experience will help strengthen the board in its oversight role.
“I’ll try to leverage my experience working at different companies that have been based in San Antonio and elsewhere and see what I can do to leverage that professional experience to fully adapt to what the board needs as it compliments the various skills that the existing board have,” he said.
Ruiz, a Uvalde native who was also raised in San Antonio, has worked in journalism in several places, including Washington, D.C., Seattle, Kansas City and Atlanta. He started his career at KSAT, has worked at NPR and CNN and served on the board of directors for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
In 2010, he was a part of the Seattle Times staff that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for its coverage of the shooting deaths of four Lakewood police officers.
Ruiz said local news has its challenges, just like national and international news, but the San Antonio Report is filling a need for information, telling people what they need to know about the community.
“San Antonio needs a good news environment,” Ruiz said. “I don’t say this to knock the other local media, because they do the jobs that they are designed to do, but I see the San Antonio Report is trying to move more into the quality of the work, rather than the quantity of the work.”
Ruiz also commended the San Antonio Report’s efforts in 2023 to lead an internal source audit of reporters’ interviews to track and review source demographics. The audit will show where the diversity of sourcing falls short and help set goals for improvement and measure progress over time.
Also an avid reader of the San Antonio Report, he plans to bring his inside-the-newsroom experience to the board and help advocate for diversity not solely on race, but sexual orientation and gender, as well as be a champion for journalists’ mental health.
“I want to be able to serve as an insight into the challenges of people in newsrooms,” Ruiz said. “I want to help set the Report up for the next 15 years in whatever it is that this newsroom needs to do their job well.”
Both additions will add even more strength to an already strong board, said Angie Mock, CEO of the San Antonio Report.
“Chris and Joe have incredibly impressive résumés in their respective fields of finance and journalism,” Mock said. “Their deep San Antonio roots and genuine passion for independent, community-minded journalism make each of them a perfect fit for our board.”
