The nominating committee of the Collegian Alumni Interest Group (AIG) has recommended three current board members for election and endorsed a new candidate, Catherine Adriana Rivera Chardon, a 2018 broadcast journalism graduate.
Sitting board members who have been nominated are Anthony Layser, Megan Hennigan and Leen Obeidat. Leen was appointed this spring to fill a vacancy on the board, so if elected, she would begin serving her first full term this fall. Anthony and Megan would begin serving second terms this fall if re-elected.
Catherine Rivera Chardon
Catherine is a Puerto Rican multimedia producer and reporter. She currently works for Latinx Now! and En Casa Con Telemundo (NBCUniversal/Telemundo). She began her career with Telemundo 52 in Los Angeles as an intern in 2017 and also served as a producer for E! News in 2018. At Latinx Now!, she has collaborated with several departments including the editorial, social and production teams. She has participated as a producer and reporter on red carpets at award ceremonies including the Latin American Music Awards, Premios Tu Música Urbano, and Premios Billboard. Earlier, she served an internship with NASCAR at Pocono Raceway where she co-hosted a digital series called “Pocono Raceway 4 Rookies.” She studied journalism and theater. She worked as an anchor, reporter and talk-show host for the student-run newscast CommRadio. For The Daily Collegian, she served as an account executive. Also at college, she was president of the Penn State Puerto Rican Student Association.
Megan Hennigan
Megan, who serves a treasurer for the board and has organized the AIG’s series of Zoom roundtables, is in charge of shopper marketing for SodaStream International. She graduated from PSU with dual degrees in marketing and international business as well as French. At the Collegian, she held various roles in the business division, including advertising executive and business manager. Before SodaStream, she worked at News America Marketing in their sales development program and Heinz North America in shopper marketing.
Leen Obeidat
Leen, who was appointed to the board earlier this year to fill a vacancy, is director of business development at Flytedesk, a technology firm that bridges the gap between national advertisers and college media. She works with hundreds of college media organizations, including The Collegian, to launch new products, optimize their operations and drive revenue. In college, she worked in the sales department at The Collegian and became business manager in 2017. She double majored in finance and telecommunications.
Anthony Layser
Anthony Layser, who has chaired the AIG’s nominating committee in prior years, is vice president of content partnerships and programming at XUMO, a Comcast company. He is responsible for developing strategy and analysis used by the executive team to determine and prioritize content partnerships and potential channel partners. He leads programming development and strategy, content acquisition deals and partner management. Before XUMO, he was North American content vice president at Dailymotion, a Vivendi company.
Any Collegian alum who wishes to nominate themselves as a candidate to run in the election may do that until July 19. A person who wishes to self-nominate, should email a resume and statement of interest to [email protected], along with the signatures of 20 Collegian AIG members who support the candidacy. All candidates must be members of the Penn State Alumni Association.
The election will be conducted Aug. 19.
The nominating committee this year is Jordan Hyman, AIG president, Robyn Radomski, vice president, and Barbara White Stack, secretary.
