Mario is the CEO and founder of García Media. He is also the Senior Adviser for News Design/Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's School of Journalism in New York.

Mario has been a consultant to over 700 media companies in 121 countries.

All García Media projects command the attention and special personalized service that is part of the Mario trademark. Trained as a journalist, he is strongly committed to the idea that content is what determines the success of a brand.

Mario has devoted more than 40 years to redesigning publications, and has personally collaborated with over 700 news organizations. From such large projects as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Aftenposten, South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), New Straits Times (Malaysia),  The Philadelphia Inquirer, Handelsblatt and Die Zeit, RIA/Moskovskiye Novosti , the Postmedia (Canada) newspapers, to medium-size newspapers, such as The Charlotte Observer, Goteborts Posten( Sweden) , or smaller ones in the heartland of America, such as the Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World, or the weekly of the oil and energy industry, Upstream (Norway); all projects command the attention and special personalized service that is part of the Mario trademark. He and his team are currently helping the McClatchy newspapers in the United States with a rethinking of its 29 titles in what is called Project 2020.

Mario was appointed the Hearst Digital Media Professional-in-Residence for 2013–14 at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His responsibilities have included teaching a course in the spring semester on multi-platform storytelling, delivering the Hearst Digital Media Lecture and participating in the Columbia Journalism School community in New York City. As part of his work with Columbia, he has most recently redesigned and rethought the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) website.  He has continued to consult with new and ongoing clients while at Columbia. He has also published his first digital book, iPad Design Lab: Storytelling in the Age of the Tablet, available from the iBookstore for iPad, as well as on Amazon Kindle and Google Books.

Mario tells everyone that he is, first and foremost, a teacher. Mario started his teaching career as a journalism professor and publications adviser at his alma mater, Miami-Dade Community College. From there he became a professor of graphic arts at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications (1976–1985), and the University of South Florida (1985–1991). In addition, he has been a Distinguished Professor at the University of Navarra, Spain, as well as a lecturer at universities in 25 countries throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Mario founded the Graphics & Design program at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, where he is still a faculty affiliate, a member of the Poynter Foundation Board and continues to be involved with EyeTrack research. He and the Garcia Media team are currently involved in a redesign of the Poynter website (poynter.org).

Most recently, Mario has been involved with Stibo Accelerator and Aarhus University in the research of how we consume news on the new smartwatches.

In 2012, he was part of the key research team for EyeTrack: Tablet, which studied how tablet users read and interact with news. Mario has also been an American Press Institute presenter at over 200 seminars, as well as an organizer and moderator for dozens of seminars at IFRA (Germany) and IAPA (Latin America) and the WAN/IFRA organization, with which he continues to participate actively as a presenter and panel moderator.

Mario has received over 300 SND Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. People Magazine en Español selected Mario as among the 100 Most Influential Hispanics. He is a 2011 recipient of the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Medal of Honor for Distinguished Service in Journalism.  In 2015, Mario became the recipient of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association's Charles O'Malley Excellence in Teaching Award.

Mario’s favorite quote: “These are the best of times to be a storyteller, since we can tell stories across platforms, emphasizing the uniqueness of each.”