American Community Media (ACoM), the nation’s first and largest association of ethnic news outlets, has announced the appointment of Jaya Padmanabhan as its new Executive Director, effective Feb. 1. She succeeds ACoM founder Sandy Close, who, after three decades of leadership will step into the role of Director Emeritus. Her career includes writing as a biweekly columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, and most recently working as project manager for the University of Southern California Center for Health Care Journalism’s Ethnic Media Collaborative. In that role, she provided mentorship, management, and editorial support to ethnic media fellows across multilingual newsrooms throughout California. “Ethnic media teaches me a different way of understanding news, documenting the intimate life of communities and amplifying voices largely unheard and unseen in the public space.