Marion Strecker

Marion Strecker (born October 17, 1960 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian journalist, photographer and entrepreneur, known as one of the pioneers of the Internet industry in South America. Since 2011 she has been living in San Francisco, California, and working as an Editor-at-Large for UOL, a major content portal in Brazil. Since 2010 she has also been a columnist for Folha de S.Paulo, one of the largest newspaper in circulation in Brazil, writing in the Market section about technology, innovation and behavior.

Strecker is one of the original founders of UOL . She served as the Content VP of the company for 15 years, from 1996 until 2011. Before joining the team that founded UOL, Marion Strecker worked at the Folha de S.Paulo Newsroom from 1984 to 1996. She was a writer, an art critic, editor of the cultural section, editor of supplements, planning coordinator, coordinator of special reports, special reporter, director of the archives and director of the Folha News Agency. Strecker was one of the authors of the "Folha Newsroom Manual".

After coordinating the Digitization of the Newspaper Archives Project in the early 90s, Strecker led a team that developed many high tech products like audiotext services (1993), the newspaper's full text annual CD-ROMs (1994–96) and a system similar to a BBS, which gave all the Folha de S.Paulo journalists and foreign correspondents access to the archives online, using telephone lines and microcomputers. Because of this work, Strecker was honored with the Folha Award on Journalism, Special Category, in 1995.

Also in charge of the Folha News Agency since 1994, Strecker led the team which created the first website for Folha's Media Group in Brazil (launched on July 9, 1995). Later that year, Strecker put together the first content team for the launch of UOL in April 1996. The company soon became the leader in the Brazilian internet market.

Strecker holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Communication from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP). In the 90s, she had a brief career as a Professor of New Technologies for Communication at Casper Líbero College of Journalism in São Paulo.

Since the 80s, she has contributed as a writer to several magazines and an invited speaker to many seminars and conferences in Brazil, US and Europe - the Abraji International Congress on Investigative Journalism in São Paulo (2011); the International Symposium on Online Journalism at the University of Texas in Austin (2009 and 2003); the ONA Conference (Online News Association) in New York City (2005); the IIR’Broadband Content Congress and the News World Conference in Barcelona (2000) and the International Seminar on Online Journalism MediaOn in São Paulo (2009 and 2007).

Early in her career as a journalist, she was a writer and a co-editor with Lisette Lagnado of Arte em São Paulo, a magazine founded by the Brazilian painter Luiz Paulo Baravelli and dedicated to the visual arts.

Before starting her career in journalism and online media, Strecker was a music teacher and a performer. She was also a shareholder of Colégio Modelo, an Elementary, Middle and High School in São Paulo, founded by her father, Professor Nilo Campos Gomes.

Strecker is married to the Brazilian journalist Mario Cesar Carvalho, with whom she has two children, Theo and Helena.