Mariana Atencio

Mariana Atencio is a Peabody award-winning journalist, best-selling author, viral speaker and media founder.

Originally from Venezuela, Mariana had one dream growing up: to shed light on the stories that didn’t make the headlines. While studying at Universidad Católica in Caracas, she was part of the student movement for democracy and came to the United States on a scholarship to study journalism at Columbia University.

Over the course of 10 years, she became an anchor at Univision and a national correspondent at NBC News. Her journalism career led her to travel the world to report on some of the most volatile conflicts of our time, like the earthquake recovery in Haiti, the refugee crisis at the Syrian border, and the Umbrella Revolution in China.

Mariana has interviewed Pope Francis, President Biden, and the King of Spain, among others. But her boots on the ground, engaging and empathic field work covering the Latino community is where she makes her mark, including the family separation crisis at the border; hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico; walking with the migrant caravans across Mexico, and the importance of Hispanic voters across the country. For her reporting, she has been honored with a Peabody Award, a Gracie Award, three national Emmy nominations and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Presidential Award.

Mariana’s TEDx talk “What makes YOU special?” took the world by storm when it went viral in 2017. To date, it has over 25 million views and has been translated into 13 languages. Delving deeper into the theme of authenticity, she wrote “Perfectly You” in English and Spanish, which was selected by Audible and AppleBooks.

In 2020, she founded Golike Media, an award-winning, female-led content media house focused on authentic storytelling for a global audience of seekers, leaders, and game changers. Golike Media was named among the top #100 Latina owned businesses in the U.S.

On the originals front, she released an investigative series about inequality for women and girls by focusing on the disappearance of two female tourists in the jungle. It’s called “Lost In Panama,” a podcast series in which Mariana and her team go back to the scene of the crime and crack an 8-year-old cold case, leading to the discovery of 40 cases of local missing women. The show made Apple Podcasts' top #10 list week of release.

Mariana is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, spokesperson and board member for the future Smithsonian American Latino Museum in D.C.