Meet Our Team
“Uplift, Respect and Love,” are actions we pledge to our audiences, our vendors, our partners, ourselves and, all importantly, our staff.
About working
at URL Media
We are on track to build a workforce create impact at scale and build a better future. Here’s why we think we are a great place to work:
S. Mitra Kalita
CEO and Co Founder
S. Mitra Kalita a veteran journalist, media executive, prolific commentator and author of two books. In 2020 she launched Epicenter-NYC, a newsletter to help New Yorkers get through the pandemic. Mitra has also recently co-founded a new media company called URL Media, a network of Black and Brown owned media organizations that share content, distribution, and revenues to increase their long-term sustainability. She’s on the board of the Philadelphia Inquirer and writes a weekly column for TIME Magazine and Charter. Mitra was most recently SVP at CNN Digital, overseeing the national news, breaking news, programming, opinion, and features teams.
Sara Lomax
President and Co Founder
Sara Lomax-Reese is President and Co Founder of URL Media. She also the President and CEO of WURD Radio, LLC,
Pennsylvania’s only African-American owned talk radio station. She is credited with transforming WURD Radio from a legacy talk radio station to a multimedia communications company providing cutting edge, original programming on air, online,
through video and community events. Prior to her work with WURD Radio and URL, in 1992 Sara co-founded HealthQuest: Total Wellness for Body, Mind & Spirit, a trailblazing African-American consumer health magazine that grew from a quarterly publication to a bi-monthly with a national circulation of over 500,000.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Sara has written for The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Essence Magazine. In 2016, Sara contributed to a book of essays, “Our Black Sons Matter,” written by Black mothers of sons. Sara has been a coach in the Major Metro Newspaper Table Stakes Program and was the Program Lead for the inaugural BIPOC Sustainability Accelerator funded by Facebook designed to empower Black and Brown owned media organizations. In 2019 Sara completed the Media Transformation Challenge (formerly the Sulzberger Program) at Harvard Kennedy School. Most recently Sara was awarded one of the coveted JSK Fellowships at Stanford.
An avid yoga and meditation practitioner, in 2012 Sara also co-founded a People of Color meditation group to serve Philadelphia’s BIPOC community.
Janelle Zagala
Chief of Staff
Janelle Zagala the Chief of Staff based in Denver, Colorado. She handles the administrative, business and people operations for URL Media. Janelle has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and has her Professional in Human Resources certification.
Ellah Nze
Director of Operations
Ellah Nze (pronounced N-Zee) is the Director of Operations at URL Media, and is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She oversees daily operations, philanthropy, and growing the partner network. Prior to joining the URL team, she was responsible for revamping University of Pennsylvania’s racquet sports operations into a profitable revenue center and oversaw programming, community partnerships and a member base of over 3,500 people. Ellah graduated with a bachelor’s degree in History and certificate in Markets and Management from Duke University. While at Duke, she was a student athlete on the women’s varsity tennis team where she was the first African American tennis player in program history and an NCAA champion. She later earned a graduate degree from Georgetown University in Sports Management, concentrating on Business Operations, Management and Sales.
Leonor Ayala
Chief of Business Development and Partnerships
Leonor Ayala is the Chief of Business Development and Partnerships for URL Media, leading its recruitment practice. Before joining URL Media, Leonor was a leading network television news executive who worked at NBC News in New York for 18 years. At NBC News, she led the network’s diversity and inclusion programs while co-producing award-winning programs. She co-founded NBCU Academy – the NBCU News Group’s flagship training program for college students and young professionals. She most recently served as the creator and executive editor of NBCUAcademy.com – an open-access journalism and media training website. Leonor led the curriculum design and implementation for internal and external DEI-centered newsroom training programs for the NBC News Group. She also oversaw the creation and management of several employee resource groups within the news division. She is a Rutgers University graduate pursuing a Master’s at New York University. She is a 2023 Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Sulzberger Fellow. She lives in San Francisco.
Melanie Figueiredo
Vice President, Advertising & Sponsorship Sales
Melanie Figueiredo is the Vice President of Advertising and Sponsorships, spearheading URL Media’s advertising sales, ad operations and client serving efforts. From 2013 – 2021, Melanie led national corporate sponsorships for a majority of the PBS KIDS national television roster and NOVA out of GBH, launching, renewing and upselling corporate sponsorships for over a dozen award-winning series and shepherding upwards of $40m to the public media system.
In her previous role as the Director of Member Services at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Melanie engaged high-level members with strategic Chamber offerings, networking at more than 100 business programs per year. Prior to her time at the Chamber, Melanie directed the Trade Services Department at the South Carolina World Trade Center and managed operations at the Global Trading Consortium. Melanie hails from Boston, and holds a B.A. in Communications and Culture from Clark University, graduating Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She has been a contributing writer to several publications including Business Insider, and sits on the advisory board of EPIC, a non-profit for young leaders with disabilities. She’s a former Americorps alum, and the proud mother of two children.
Andaiye Taylor
Editorial Director
Andaiye Taylor is Editorial Director at URL Media. She has more than 15 years of leadership experience at startup and Fortune 500 companies in the adtech and fintech verticals, in roles spanning account management, publisher revenue management, product development and content strategy.
For six years, she published Brick City Live, an award-winning New Jersey-based hyperlocal news publication, then launched a boutique consulting firm, Angle Content & Strategy, that has launched and managed revenue-driving branded content businesses for both enterprise companies and news publishers.
Andaiye graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in American History and Africana Studies, then earned her M.S. at Columbia Journalism School, where she was awarded the Lars-Erik Nelson Prize for Excellence in Reporting and Writing. A former fellow at the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, she currently mentors journalism startup founders in the program. Andaiye is a 2023 Media Transformation Challenge fellow. She lives in Long Beach, California with her husband and two cats.
Sonali Kohli
Sonali Kohli is a Senior Recruiter at URL Media, where she works with newsrooms and media-adjacent organizations that want to find fantastic candidates and treat them well. She has worked at newspapers, digital startups, and online news organizations as a reporter, editor, and mentor to new talent. More by Sonali Kohli
Maria Hernandez
Account Coordinator
Maria is the Advertising Sales Coordinator at URL Media. She has 10 years of media sales experience in the OOH and local broadcast television & digital sales spaces in roles spanning from administrative to sales support for various agencies and advertisers. Maria graduated from the University of California, Riverside with a B.A in Media & Cultural Studies. Outside of work, Maria enjoys hiking, rollerblading down The Strand in Hermosa Beach and discovering and supporting local coffee shops. More by Maria Hernandez
Ariam Alula
Audience Manager
Ariam Alula (how to say it) is URL Media’s first audience manager. She works closely with URL Media’s Editorial Director and leads the network’s social and newsletter content while further developing and executing the brand’s strategic audience goals. Alula who was born and raised in The Bronx had this to say about her work upon joining the network in the fall of 2022.
“I’m committed to helping our audience understand how issues in their own backyard impact other BIPOC communities. Also, I believe that our network’s content amplification and original reporting should fully reflect and affirm the customs and cultural norms of our multicultural, multidisciplinary, and geographically diverse audiences. As BIPOC communities have and continue to be grossly misrepresented by the mainstream media, this part of the work can’t be overstated. Also growing up as a child of immigrants, community is an integral part of my identity, and it’s something I bring to URL Media every day.”
Before joining the network, Alula sharpened her range of skills and interests in newsletter curation and editing, audience strategy and research, and measuring and tracking impact. In recent years Alula has worked for many organizations in the journalism support space, such as Coda Story while based in the Republic of Georgia and U.S.-based organizations like the Institute for Nonprofit News, the Public Square Team at Democracy Fund, Online News Association and Women Do News. She has also written for the American Press Institute’s Need to Know newsletter.
Alula is also a proud graduate of the engagement journalism program at the Craig Newmark Journalism School at the City University of New York, where she spent 16 long, insightful and experimental months working with family caregivers of people with autism in New York City. More by Ariam Alula
Mukiyanna Kamara
Executive Assistant
Mukiyanna Kamara is the Executive Assistant to Mitra Kalita and Sara Lomax. She handles the administrative duties of both Sara and Mitra Mukiyanna has a bachelor’s in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Marketing. More by Mukiyanna Kamara
