The mission of El Clasificado is to teach, inspire and empower Latinos to learn to make life better for themselves and their families. El Clasificado is a multiplatform media company that Martha de la Torre and her husband, Joe Badame founded in 1988 to serve the shopping needs of U.S. Spanish speaking Latinos living in grassroots communities.

Martha C. de la Torre is the CEO of El Clasificado and Joe Badame is the Chief Operations Officer. Martha earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Loyola Marymount University in 1978, and immediately joined Arthur Young & Company. There, Martha became a Certified Public Accountant and audit manager specializing in financial institutions and also assisted businesses in the emerging Hispanic market. Before founding El Clasificado, Martha served two years as Chief Financial Officer of La Opinion, the Spanish-language daily. Joe earned his Bachelor degree in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Joe also became a CPA and accountant at Arthur Young and specialized in forensic accounting.

El Clasificado was launched right before the recession of the 90’s and the company struggled to remain afloat for several years. In 1995 the young entrepreneurs changed the distribution model and Joe joined the company full-time to take over operations so Martha could focus on sales, marketing and new product development.  This re-engineering finally put El Clasificado on a trajectory to success. El Clasificado is now the largest Spanish-language weekly shopper in the U.S. with circulation of 460,000. Elclasificado.com is the leading Spanish-language online classified portal serving U.S. Latinos with a ranking among the top 12,000 U.S. websites according to Quantcast.com. El Clasificado has been recognized by the LA Business Journal as one of L.A.’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies and 50 Largest Latino Companies in Los Angeles, as well as by Hispanic Business Magazine’s 500 Largest U. S. Hispanic Owned Companies and 100 Fastest Growing Companies, and has been a Greater Los Angeles finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. El Clasificado is active in the community with representation on the boards of the Los Angeles County Education Foundation and the Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic. Martha is a Regent for Loyola Marymount as well as a Board Member of LMU’s MAAA which provides merit and need scholarships to Latino students.