Robert J. Armband has resigned as chief executive and publisher of Chicago’s La Raza, the ImpreMedia-owned Spanish-language weekly newspaper, effective Wednesday.
ImpreMedia on Wednesday named Mike Cano, marketing director of its Los Angeles paper, La Opinion, to be Armband’s interim successor. Cano didn’t return calls seeking comment.
Armband, who spent 16 years with La Raza, acquired it in 2001 and sold it to New York-based ImpreMedia in 2004, said in an interview that he will continue to advise ImpreMedia and will remain an ImpreMedia shareholder.
He is launching Venado Consulting, which aims to continue “with La Raza’s mission to positively impact the quality of life for U.S. Latinos.” Armband said Venado will target the Hispanic community while dealing with marketing and promotion, nurturing content for both traditional and digital media and developing shopping malls around the country.
Armband also said his decision was based in part on family health issues.
“I’m at the stage of my life where the quality of life is very, very important to me,” said Armband, 51, a married father of two. “After 16 years as the driving force behind La Raza, you can imagine I missed a lot of the little things that mean quite a bit and I’m anxious to really spend that quality time with my family. But that’s not to say I don’t want to continue to pursue exciting new projects.”
“When I started [at La Raza as associate publisher and partner] back in 1991, our circulation was about 30,000,” said Armband, who added that circulation is now around 198,000. “We have grown exponentially. In fact our profit now is two times what our gross revenue was in those days.”
John Paton, chief executive of ImpreMedia, in a statement, called Armband “an integral part” of the paper’s transformation “from a small urban weekly to the No. 1 Hispanic weekly in the U.S.” in terms of revenue.
“We are very grateful to Robert for his efforts and leadership over the past three years, following ImpreMedia’s acquisition of La Raza,” Paton said.
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philrosenthal@tribune.com
