Search for Mercedes Soler and you will find a familiar shorthand: veteran anchor, Emmy winner, CNN en Español host. All of that is true, but it barely scratches the surface of a life built on reinvention.
Long before she sat behind a news desk, Mercedes Soler was a nine year old girl leaving Cuba with her family, carrying almost nothing except the hope of a safer future. That early experience of starting over would repeat itself throughout her life, first as a young immigrant learning English from television, later as a rookie reporter breaking into a competitive industry, and eventually as a longtime broadcaster who chose to walk away from a national platform to build something of her own.
This article follows that full journey in detail, from her earliest years in Havana to her current role running a Florida media company, and explains why her story still resonates with anyone interested in journalism, immigration, or Hispanic media in America.
Who Is Mercedes Soler
Mercedes Soler is a Cuban American journalist best known for her long tenure at Univision and CNN en Español, where she reported on major world events and interviewed a dozen Latin American heads of state.
She later stepped away from national television to co found Solmart Media, a Spanish language radio company based in Sarasota, Florida. Her career bridges two very different worlds: high profile international news and grassroots, community focused local media, and she has managed to succeed in both.
Leaving Cuba: A Childhood Shaped by Exile
Soler was born in Havana and lived there until she was nine years old. Her parents made the wrenching decision to leave Cuba so their four daughters would not grow up under a repressive communist government.
For a young child, that meant leaving behind everything familiar, language, home, and community, to start again somewhere unknown. It is a story that mirrors the experience of countless Cuban exile families from that era, and it planted a belief in Soler that she carried into her adult work: that immigrants like her family were never outsiders looking to break rules, they simply became part of the country they now called home.
Chicago, Loyola, and a First Taste of Radio
Before settling in Chicago, the family spent time in Spain, living in Madrid and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. That path across several countries and cultures gave Soler an early, natural fluency in moving between languages and audiences.
Once in Chicago, she finished high school and enrolled at Loyola University, studying communications alongside radio, television, and film. It was here, almost by accident, that a small Spanish language university radio program became her first real classroom in journalism.
She has said the profession chose her rather than the other way around. As a child she watched television specifically to learn English, gravitated toward news programs, and admired broadcasters like Barbara Walters. By the time she reached high school she was already writing for her school newspaper and experimenting behind a radio microphone.
Breaking Into Univision
That early experience paid off the moment she graduated. Soler has explained that both Univision Miami and Univision Chicago offered her a job right out of college, largely because she already had real reporting experience through internships and volunteer radio work.
It is advice she still repeats to young journalists today: internships and hands on experience open doors that a degree alone cannot. Her own career is the clearest possible proof of that idea.
Two Decades of High Stakes Reporting
Soler spent eighteen years at Univision as a senior correspondent and anchoHispanicr, reporting across the United States and Latin America. This period built the foundation of her professional reputation as a serious, versatile journalist rather than simply a familiar face on screen.
Her assignments ranged from breaking news to deep investigative reporting, and she traveled extensively throughout both regions to cover stories that mattered to Spanish speaking audiences on both sides of the border.
The Presidents, the Traffickers, and the Tragedies She Covered
Few journalists build a resume with the range Soler has. Over her career she interviewed a dozen Latin American presidents, including Alberto Fujimori of Peru, Miguel de la Madrid of Mexico, Carlos Menem of Argentina, Violeta Chamorro and Arnoldo Aleman of Nicaragua, Abdala Bucaram and Gustavo Noboa of Ecuador, and Ernesto Samper of Colombia.
She also sat down with convicted drug trafficker Carlos Lehder, an interview that demonstrates the trust placed in her to handle difficult, high risk subjects. On the news side, she reported on the September 11 terrorist attacks and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and she covered the funerals of cultural icons Celia Cruz and Maria Felix, assignments that called for both speed and sensitivity.
A New Chapter at CNN en Español
In October 2010, after nearly two decades at Univision, Soler joined CNN en Español as the anchor of Notimujer, a daily program created for Spanish speaking women across the United States and Latin America. She held that role for three years.
In December 2013 she moved into a new program, Realidades en Contexto, which took a more analytical approach to the news, examining how daily global events actually affected viewers in their roles as citizens, parents, and community members. Rather than simply reading headlines, the show tried to translate news into everyday relevance.
She remained at CNN en Español until September 2016, when she made the decision to leave national television and focus on a new venture with her husband.
The Awards That Define a Career
Consistency across three decades is rare in any industry, and Soler’s list of honors reflects exactly that.
- Five Emmy Awards and fifteen Emmy nominations from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
- A Peabody Award, one of the most respected honors in broadcasting
- A GLAAD Media Award for outstanding local television interview
Together these awards tell a story of a journalist who was never coasting, someone whose work continued to earn recognition well into the later stages of her career.
Author, Educator, and Community Voice
Broadcasting was never Soler’s only outlet. In December 2005 she co authored her first book, Entre Nosotras de Mujer a Mujer, a collaboration with five other writers aimed at Spanish speaking women.
She later co wrote Dish and Tell: Life, Love and Secrets, published by HarperCollins, a project that eventually became a stage musical, an unusual leap for a journalist’s personal writing to make.
Alongside her media work, she taught international Spanish language journalism students through the University of Miami and coached media and press strategy for United States diplomats stationed across Latin America, working as a subcontractor for the State Department. For years she also wrote a weekly column for El Nuevo Herald.
Her community commitments extend just as far. She has served on the boards of the John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art, the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, and the Lakewood Ranch based Affordable National Homeownership Coalition, and she remains active with the Institute for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean at the University of South Florida and the International Women’s Forum.
Walking Away From the Anchor Desk
Leaving CNN en Español in 2016 was not a retreat from journalism, it was a redirection of it. Soler and her husband, radio executive Tomas Martinez, decided to build their own media company rather than continue within the structure of a national network.
For a broadcaster with her level of visibility, stepping away from a national anchor chair is not a small decision. It reflects a clear choice to prioritize direct, local impact over continued national exposure, a theme that has defined the second half of her career.
Building Solmart Media From the Ground Up
Solmart Media is the Spanish language radio and digital media company Soler co owns with her husband. The company operates two FM stations and one AM station reaching nine counties in Florida, serving roughly half a million Hispanic residents.
Its stated mission, to entertain, inform, educate, and elevate an underserved community, is not just marketing language for Soler. As co owner and president she personally oversees editorial content, outreach, advocacy, public relations, community productions for nonprofits, and internship and mentoring programs, work that closely mirrors the advocacy running through her entire career.
Serving Sarasota’s Hispanic Community
Solmart Media relocated to Sarasota in 2019, specifically to reach the region’s growing Hispanic population. Its stations mix formats like Mexican country music with locally produced Spanish language programming focused on practical, everyday concerns.
Soler often points to concrete examples of that impact. The station has helped families understand remote learning options for their children, explained how to access gifted education programs, and encouraged families to preserve their native language even as their children grow up bilingual in English.
In one particularly striking example, she once offered a pregnant listener a ride to the hospital after the child’s father had been detained and deported following a routine traffic stop. Stories like that illustrate how deeply Solmart Media is embedded in the daily lives of the community it serves, well beyond what a typical local radio station provides.
What Her Career Teaches Working Journalists
A few clear lessons emerge from looking at Soler’s career as a whole.
Early, real world experience matters more than credentials alone. Her internships and volunteer radio work in college directly led to job offers from two major Univision markets.
Range builds long term credibility. Few journalists can say they interviewed both sitting presidents and a convicted drug trafficker, and that breadth of trust took years to earn.
National visibility is not the only measure of impact. Her move to a locally owned Florida radio company shows that a hyperlocal, service driven approach can matter just as much as a national platform, sometimes more.
Storytelling rarely fits into one medium alone. Books, newspaper columns, teaching, diplomatic coaching, and now station ownership all flow from the same underlying instinct to inform and connect people.
Conclusion
Mercedes Soler’s career moves through several distinct chapters: a child leaving Cuba in search of safety, a bilingual college graduate breaking into Chicago radio, a national anchor reporting on defining global events, and finally a media entrepreneur serving her adopted community in Sarasota, Florida.
Her five Emmy Awards, Peabody Award, and GLAAD Media Award confirm her skill behind the microphone, but her decision to build Solmart Media says just as much about her values as any trophy on a shelf. Whether from a national anchor desk or a small radio studio in Florida, she has consistently chosen to serve Hispanic audiences directly, and that consistency is the real throughline of her legacy.
For anyone starting out in journalism, her path offers a simple but powerful lesson: get real experience early, stay open to reinventing your career, and never lose sight of the audience you set out to serve in the first place.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Mercedes Soler?
Mercedes Soler is a Cuban American journalist known for her long career as a correspondent and anchor at Univision and CNN en Español, and for co founding Solmart Media, a Spanish language radio company in Sarasota, Florida.
What is Mercedes Soler known for on television?
She is best known for reporting major global stories, interviewing a dozen Latin American presidents, and hosting CNN en Español programs including Notimujer and Realidades en Contexto.
How many Emmy Awards has Mercedes Soler won?
She has won five Emmy Awards and received fifteen Emmy nominations from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, along with a Peabody Award and a GLAAD Media Award.
What is Solmart Media?
Solmart Media is a Spanish language radio and digital media company that Mercedes Soler co owns with her husband, Tomas Martinez. It operates two FM stations and one AM station reaching nine Florida counties and about half a million Hispanic residents.
Why did Mercedes Soler leave CNN en Español?
She left in September 2016 to co found Solmart Media, choosing to focus on serving her local Hispanic community in Florida rather than continuing in a national broadcast role.
