Ms Gatti-Cheek joined The Post in 2002 as a marketing representative for what was then the Post Writers Group and became head of international sales and marketing. After leaving The Post in 2020, she became a partner and director of business development at Oronoco Investments LLC, an asset management firm in McLean, Virginia.

Early in her career, she worked in global sales for telecommunications companies and was a national program associate for the Nature Conservancy, among other jobs.

Maria Nazaret Gatti Nuñez was born in Asunción, Paraguay on February 3, 1964, and grew up in Bethesda after her father, a lawyer, joined the Inter-American Development Bank.

She graduated in 1982 from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda and in 1986 from Catholic University. In 1995, she earned a master’s degree in management from what is now the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.

Survivors include her husband of five years, Steven Cheek of McLean; his mother, Livia Gatti of Bethesda; and two brothers.