Ana Urena

Ana Urena was born in Madrid but soon moved to Budapest, Hungary, with her parents as her father was working there at the time for the Spanish airline company Iberia Airlines. Her mother Cristina Suriani was a well known Spanish actress at the time. After Budapest, she moved to Vienna, again with the parents and started nursery school there, speaking both German and Spanish, her native language. After that the family moved to Belgium where Ana was put in the French Lycee Francais system from which she would graduate later on with honors. At the age of 8 she moved to New York, where she learned English and then on to Rome, where she ended up learning Italian and finally London where she graduated from Richmond University with a Cum Laude in International Relations. It was in London that she first started working as a journalist, in the glossy magazine sector (Harper's, Tatler) before going on to The Times newspaper where she worked on The Time's Diary team. Then it was finally time to come back to her hometown, Madrid, where she moved back with the parents. Here she worked for a few months as Beauty Editor for Spanish ELLE magazine and then as Fashion Writer for Spanish Vogue Magazine for two years. She was also Editor in Chief of luxury the Spanish edition of travel magazine Luxos Magazine, Brand Director for the Spanish fashion brand Javier Larrainzar and did a stint as celebrity stylist for the full season of the Spanish version of the show Extreme Makeover, called Cambio Radical. From here she went on to freelance as a fashion writer for Spanish national newspaper ABC and regular contributor to all their magazine supplements, as well as set up events for them and created the spin off newspaper fashion biannual magazine XTRA ABC. She was also a regular on Punto Radio with radio host Ramon Garcia and appeared as a stylist on the makeover program Fiona te Necesito. But when a glossy magazine came calling, she was not able to resist the offer and finally went on to be Editor in Chief of Cosmopolitan magazine. As head of brand in Spain for two years, she created new editorial products and new advertising strategies both in print and online, together with her team. The company she worked for, GyJ, lost the license to the brand because of a change in the company holdings and the owners of the brand, Hearst, took back their title in Spain, letting the whole team go and putting together a new team with inhouse personnel. She is now back to freelancing as a journalist, her first love, took back hr blog Lexico Fashionista set up a Podcast with actor and communicator Fernando Candela and event planning with clandestine parties Black Heart.