Los Angeles, CA – May 11, 2010 - At the 12th annual Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) Awards ceremony, El Clasificado was named #74 on the 100 Fastest Growing Inner City Companies in America list, an honor reserved for successful companies that serve as role models for their entrepreneurship, innovative business practices and job creation in America’s urban communities.

This year’s honor marks the fourth time El Clasificado has received this accolade, being recognized for its continued mission to help build stronger communities in the Hispanic marketplace.  “In the last 22 years, we have been dedicated to helping Latinos find the products and services they want and need through a variety of accessible platforms, including print, web, mobile, and community expos” said Martha de la Torre, CEO and co-founder of El Clasificado. “In these stressful economic times, we are proud and grateful that we have still been able to grow geographically, grow with new products, and grow with new job opportunities in traditional as well as new media.  In the past year we added over 20 full time jobs from entry level to middle management positions.”
    
The ICIC Award recognizes El Clasificado’s compounded annual growth rate of 21% over a five year period. “Our weekly print circulation grew from 150,000 copies to 350,000 in five years and our online traffic grew from 8,500 monthly pageviews in 2007 to current monthly pageviews of 3.7 million.  This growth was not by accident but through a collaborative and strategic plan executed by our hardworking staff to jump over obstacles and focus on opportunities.  We knew we had to work with our customers to help them with credit issues and concentrate sales efforts on categories that remained strong in our market like services for traditional Hispanic celebrations and auto repair services.” stated Joe Badame, COO and Co-Founder of El Clasificado.

The summit, which took place in Boston, MA on May 5, included seminars for the winners at Harvard Business School and events celebrating the positive impact these companies bring to their communities and their local economies. The Inner City 100 list will also be displayed in Bloomberg BusinessWeek later this month.

El Clasificado is a leading Hispanic multi-platform media company that provides a marketplace for Spanish speaking Latinos in grassroots communities. With the largest free weekly Hispanic publication in the United States, the leading online classified portal in the U.S. Latino market, Pacoslist.com, an online business directory and multiple grassroots events, El Clasificado has become the main resource for Hispanic buyers and sellers. In addition to this award, El Clasificado recently won “Best Classified Paper” and “Best Circulation Program” at the 2010 National Association of Hispanic Publications (NAHP) Print Awards and “Best Presentation of Classifieds in the Internet” at the 2010 Association of Free Community Papers (AFCP) Awards Competition.

The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City is a national non-for-profit organization that was founded in 1994 by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter. In the last 12 years, 607 different companies have earned positions on the Inner City 100, collectively generating more than $27.2 billion in revenues and creating nearly 72,000 new jobs.

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