Mario García

Dr. Mario R. García is Senior Adviser on News Design and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He is also the CEO and Founder of García Media, a global consulting firm specializing in newsroom transformation, design strategy, and mobile-first storytelling.

Dr. García has guided more than 750 redesign and innovation projects across 120 countries, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, South China Morning Post, and Handelsblatt. He joined Columbia in 2013 as the Hearst Digital Media Professor in Residence, where he continues to teach and advise journalists on visual storytelling and digital transformation.

He is the author of 16 books about journalism, design, and the future of media. His latest, Consulting with Heart (2025), explores creativity, empathy, and leadership in the age of artificial intelligence. Previous works include the acclaimed trilogy The Story: Transformation · Storytelling · Design (2019) and AI: The Next Revolution in Content Creation (2024).

Dr. García founded the Graphics & Design Program at the Poynter Institute, where he fhe conducted the EyeTrack Research projects.

He has received numerous honors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for News Design, the University of Missouri Medal of Honor in Journalism, and the Charles O’Malley Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. People Magazine recognized him among the “100 Most Influential Hispanics in the United States.”

Dr. García earned his Ph.D. from the University of Miami.