New York Times promotes three staff members in Food and Cooking division; Becky Hughes named assistant editor, Lee Manansala becomes senior video editor, Adam Centrella advances

The team congratulates Becky Hughes, Lee Manansala and Adam Centrella. Read more in this note from Emily Weinstein, Scott Loitsch and CC Allen.

We’re thrilled to announce promotions for three of our colleagues in Food and Cooking: Becky Hughes, Lee Manansala and Adam Centrella.

Becky Hughes becomes an assistant editor, focused on developing the way we use videos and social media to connect with more users. As short-form vertical videos have become more important to The Times and our strategy for NYT Cooking, so too has Becky’s leadership. Becky, who joined The Times in 2019, helped shape the voice of NYT Cooking off platform, driving the growth of our Instagram account to more than four million followers and, more recently, launching our TikTok. She ensures our work is culturally relevant, smart and full of style, and her wit and kindness have made her a sounding board for people across the team. In this new role, she’ll use her keen understanding of the social media ecosystem in service of our franchise and talent strategies, and she’ll work more closely with the product and marketing teams to meet audience goals. Becky, who’ll continue to report to Emily Fleischaker, will also take on direct management responsibilities, overseeing the work of Natasha Janardan and Kasia Pilat.

Lee Manansala is being promoted to senior video editor. Lee, who joined The Times in 2022, has played an essential role across almost all of our video properties, and is responsible for bringing some of our most ambitious projects to life. Lee’s skill, creativity, humor, commitment to his work, sense of pacing, and grasp of our mission make him not just a fantastic editor, but a generous collaborator as well. As a senior video editor, Lee will play a large role in defining and iterating on our franchises, and helping us uphold our standards across edits. He’ll also continue to edit videos across our properties, lifting every video to its highest potential. Lee will report to CC Allen in her new role as executive producer for NYT Cooking video.

Adam Centrella becomes a senior video journalist, taking more of a leadership role in our studio operation and playing a pivotal role in the expansion of franchise production. Adam, who joined The Times in 2022, has led the charge on some of our biggest initiatives, including the project to shoot and embed more than 150 recipe demo videos in the Cooking product. Adam has become a go-to producer for collaborative projects because he’s both a creative force and a joy to work with, fostering a warm, easygoing environment on set that puts our talent at ease. Adam will continue to report to Vaughn Vreeland.

Please join us in congratulating Adam, Becky and Lee!

— Emily Weinstein, Scott Loitsch and CC Allen