The Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism is proud to announce its second cohort of 20 media leaders, who will push for transformation in the news industry and change their organizations by developing resilient strategies, successful products, and sustainable business models.
“We are proud that after our inaugural group last year, we were again able to assemble a diverse and international group of leaders who are passionate about driving change and innovation,” said program director Anita Zielina.
The participants speak many languages and represent seven countries, including Brazil, Finland, Germany, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The program will begin in May and conclude in April of 2022. It will be conducted mostly online, with in-person residencies in Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 if the COVID-19 situation permits.
Support for scholarships has been provided by the Google News Initiative, Media Lab Bayern, and the Knight Foundation. For the first time, two participants in the group received support for their role in the local media ecosystem: The Center for Community Media at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism (CCM) awarded a full scholarship to a member of its network who represents the power of community journalism. Additionally, the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism is supporting its very first Social Impact Fellow with a full scholarship, honoring a participant who is empowering communities who are often not given a voice.
EXECUTIVE PROGRAM CLASS OF 2022
Noel Algarín Martínez
Pronouns: He, him, his
Country of origin: Puerto Rico
Current location: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Role: Deputy Information Editor at El Nuevo Día
Noel Algarín Martínez is a journalist with over 20 years of experience, mostly in digital and print media. He is responsible for breaking news coverage, editorial strategy, off-platform distribution, and homepage programming at El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico’s leading newspaper. In the past decade, he has been a leader on several steering committees that have managed digital convergence and integration projects at GFR Media, the company that owns El Nuevo Día.
Prior to that, Algarín Martínez worked as a reporter, content producer, columnist, and as an editor on the sports desk for Primera Hora and univision.com. He is a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico and loves history, music, Pearl Jam, dogs, all Puerto Rico’s national teams, the Chicago Cubs, and FC Barcelona.
Shana Black
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: United States
Current location: Cleveland, Ohio
Role: Founder and Publisher of Black Girl Media
Shana Black is the founder and publisher of Black Girl Media in Cleveland, Ohio. A former K-12 educator, she launched the media organization in 2016 to amplify underrepresented voices and inform communities of color. Black is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and has recently been appointed to the board of the Local Media Foundation. Black Girl Media includes newsletters, podcasts, websites, events, and social media.
Shana Black is a Google News Initiative Fellow.
Sewell Chan
Pronouns: He, him, his
Country of origin: United States
Current location: Los Angeles, California
Role: Editor-in-chief at The Texas Tribune
As the editorial page editor, Sewell Chan oversees the editorial board and the op-ed and Sunday opinion pages of the Los Angeles Times. He was named to the position in April 2020. Chan previously served as a deputy managing editor, overseeing the digital newsroom. Before joining the Times in September 2018, Chan worked at The New York Times (2004-2018) and at The Washington Post (2000-2004). He is a native of New York City and a graduate of Harvard University.
Cynthia DuBose
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: United States
Current location: Atlanta, Georgia
Role: Managing Editor, Audience Engagement at McClatchy
Cynthia DuBose has nearly 20 years of experience helping local news organizations leverage digital products and platforms to reach the right audience at the right time. As McClatchy’s Managing Editor, Audience Engagement, she leads a team focused on audience growth and retention, newsletter strategy, search, audio, and video. Their work drives consumer engagement and revenue by leveraging content distribution channels, connecting with communities, and crafting experiences to increase subscriber loyalty. DuBose’s current focus is to develop a newsletter strategy that places readers at its core and a video/audio strategy that “super-serves” local audiences and subscribers. While she calls Atlanta home, DuBose will always be a New Yorker at heart.
Cynthia DuBose is a Google News Initiative Fellow.
Tiff Fehr
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: United States
Current location: Utah
Role: Project Lead & Staff Engineer, The New York Times
Tiff Fehr is an assistant editor for Interactive News Technology in the newsroom of The New York Times. The Interactive team is a hybrid of data journalism and custom software development. She currently leads the team that supports NYT’s open-source, public data set about COVID-19. In non-pandemic times, she is part of NYT’s recurring elections, Olympics, and (data-heavy) news event coverage.
She currently serves as an Advisory Board member at Open News. Previously she worked at msnbc.com (now NBCNews.com) and various Seattle-area startups.
Maritza Lizeth Gallego Félix
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: Mexico
Current location: Phoenix, Arizona
Role: Independent Journalist – Conecta Arizona Founder
Maritza Lizeth Gallego Félix is a freelance journalist, producer, and writer in Arizona. She is the founder of Conecta Arizona, a news-you-can-use service in Spanish that connects people in Arizona and Sonora primarily through WhatsApp and social media. She is an JSK Stanford, IWMF Adelante, Feet in 2 Worlds, EWA, and Listening Post Collective Fellow and part of Take The Lead’s 50 Women Who Can Change the World of Journalism 2020 cohort.
Maritza Lizeth Félix is the Center for Community Media (CCM) Fellow.
Daniela Flor
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: Brazil
Current location: São Paulo, Brazil
Role: Audience Product Owner at Estadão
Daniela Flor is an “audience person” who has spent the last years working in digital distribution strategies at media companies. She participated in the launch of CNN Brazil, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, providing insights for the company about the first steps of its digital audience. She is a graduate of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) and has a degree in Media, Politics and Society from FESPSP, where she researched impacts of digital platforms on the gatekeeping process of news organizations.
She has recently joined Estadão, a traditional Brazilian newspaper, to participate in its digital transformation as an audience specialist. She has also previously worked with audience analysis and SEO for several media brands at Editora Abril and as a reporter for VEJA.com.
Hillary Frey
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: United States
Current location: Brooklyn, NY
Role: Creator-in-residence at CUNY J+
Most recently the executive editor of HuffPost, Hillary Frey began her career in the late ’90s in the advertising department of the tiny, award-winning magazine Lingua Franca. From there, she moved through editing roles initially focused on culture (The Nation, Salon.com), media (The New York Observer, Politico) and then into news (Adweek, Yahoo News, NBC News, and Fusion).
Over the past decade, leading newsrooms large and small, she has focused on empathetic management, improving development processes, and building healthy culture, as well as collaborative processes with unionized teams. She lives in Brooklyn with her daughter.
Antonia Götsch
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: Germany
Current location: Hamburg, Germany
Role: Editor-in-Chief
Antonia Goetsch is editor-in-chief at Harvard Business Manager. The title is the German subsidiary of the American Harvard Business Review and is part of DER SPIEGEL and Manager Magazin Verlag. She has been leading teams in different roles for more than 10 years and completed a one-year training in coaching. She co-hosts the Podcast Team A, which is all about leadership.
Previously, she worked at the Financial Times Deutschland until she took part in a management buy-out and helped set up the publishing house Impulse with 40 employees as deputy editor-in-chief and editor-in-chief. She has been involved with Pro Quote Medien for years, advocating for gender balance among executive positions in the media industry.
Daniel Kempf
Pronouns: He, him, his
Country of origin: Germany
Current location: Germany
Role: Managing Director pd digital, Mediengruppe Pressedruck
Daniel Kempf is a managing director of pd digital, the digital holding company of PD media group in Augsburg, Germany. He studied in Berlin and has many years of experience in a wide variety of publishing and media projects. In his current role, he is responsible for investment management, product development, and the transformational process of the publishing house. He manages numerous investments and projects for the media group in the digital sector. In 2020 he established a new tech and data hub for media brands and newsrooms of PD to drive digital success.
Soraya Membreno
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: United States
Current location: Los Angeles, California
Role: Nonprofit Media Consultant, Bitch Media Former Publisher
Soraya Membreno is a former publisher at Bitch Media, a feminist nonprofit outlet in print since 1996. A firm believer in accessible and inclusive funding models, she has spent much of her career advocating for community-centered approaches to fundraising and membership that interrogate who we think of as a donor in order to bridge business strategy and audience cultivation. With a development and marketing background from the literary nonprofit world, she has spent the latter half of her career in media, immersed in revenue models, newsletter strategy, and strategic partnerships. She is a proud alum of the Online News Association’s 2019 Women’s Leadership Accelerator, a first-generation Nicaraguan-American, and a perpetual cheerleader for Miami.
Angela Moon
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: South Korea
Current location: New York, New York
Role: Managing Editor, Bloomberg LP
Angela Moon oversees the Breaking News operation at Bloomberg, managing a group of editors dedicated to delivering accurate and timely news in the first 15 minutes of coverage. Under her leadership, all aspects of Breaking News in the Americas came under a single ambit with teams now expanding to New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, and Brasilia. In 2020, she led successful coverage of the U.S. Elections.
Previously, Moon spent more than a decade at Reuters reporting on Wall Street and tech. She also created a reporting team that mines trends, topics, and stories that play out on social media platforms. Prior to becoming a journalist, she worked for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, based in Vienna, Austria.
Moon has received the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. In 2010, her book “Minutes From Wall Street” was published in Seoul, South Korea. She lives with her husband and two daughters, ages 5 and 3.
Christian Moser
Pronouns: He, him, his
Country of origin: Germany
Current location: Germany
Role: Chief content manager, editor-in-chief audio at Michaelsbund
Christian Moser studied science of politics in Munich. In 2001, he started a radio-trainee-program at Michaelsbund, the Catholic media house in Bavaria, and after that worked there as radio editor. In 2013 Moser took over the project-management for a 24/7 religious radio program and became its editor-in-chief. Since 2020, he’s been a member of the executive board at Michaelsbund.
Christian Moser is a Media Lab Bayern Company Fellow.
Amanda Pike
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: United States
Current location: San Francisco, California
Role: Director of TV and Documentaries at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting
Amanda Pike is the director of the TV and documentary department and executive producer of films and series at Reveal. Under her leadership, The Center for Investigative Reporting garnered its first Academy Award nomination and four national Emmys, among other accolades. She was the executive producer of the inaugural year of the Glassbreaker Films initiative, supporting women in documentary filmmaking and investigative journalism.
She spent the past two decades reporting and producing documentaries for PBS, CBS, ABC, National Geographic, A&E, Lifetime, and The Learning Channel, among others. Subjects have ranged from militia members in Utah to young entrepreneurs in Egypt and genocide perpetrators in Cambodia. Pike also has dabbled in fiction filmmaking, producing the short film “On the Assassination of the President,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Annika Ruoranen
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: Finland
Current location: Finland
Role: Head of Digital Services at Yle
Annika Ruoranen is a corporate-level Strategist for Yle, the Finnish National Broadcasting Company. Previously she worked at the Yle News Lab, where she held roles as Head of Change, Content Production Workflow, and Head of Audience Insight. She was a visiting researcher at the European Broadcasting Union, where she was part of a small team that produced the live Eurovision Debate.
Her background is in journalism, but she’s worked with bridging the editorial staff and their audience for the past few years. She is passionate about improving journalistic work through living strategy, and has an M.A. in Journalism.
Gabriel Sama
Pronouns: He, him, his
Country of origin: Mexico
Current location: Palo Alto, California
Role: Independent media consultant
Gabriel Sama has launched multiple media projects as founder, manager, and consultant. Most recently, he was the managing editor at CNET en Español, from 2013 to 2020. He was also the founding editor at the Rumbo chain of newspapers in Texas and has worked as a consultant with media companies in countries like Greece, Venezuela, Mexico, the UAE, and El Salvador. He has an M.S. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and is a former Stanford Knight Fellow.
George Sarpong
Pronouns: He, him, his
Country of origin: Germany
Current location: Basel, Switzerland
Role: Co-Founder, Swiss Media Incubator
George Sarpong has been editor-in-chief of the ICT business medium Computerworld Switzerland since 2017 and of the German ICT business medium Com! Professional since January 2021. Previously, he worked at the B2B media Netzwoche, IT-Markt, and Fotointern. Sarpong has an Executive Master’s Degree in Digital Journalism, is a lecturer at the Swiss School of Journalism (MAZ), and President of the Education Commission at the Association of Swiss Specialized Journalists (SFJ). He enjoys life with his family in Basel, Switzerland.
Geraldine Sealey
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: United States
Current location: Brooklyn, New York
Role: Managing Editor, The Marshall Project
Geraldine Sealey is the managing editor of The Marshall Project. Previously, she was The Marshall Project’s features editor. Since joining the newsroom in 2017, she has edited stories that have been co-published with The Atlantic, BuzzFeed News, Frontline (PBS), New York, The New Yorker, The New York Times, NPR, Teen Vogue, Vice, The Washington Post, Wired, and many other outlets. Earlier in her career, she held senior editorial positions at several national news organizations and magazines. She has collaborated on work that has won several National Magazine Awards and nominations, a Peabody award and nomination, multiple Edward R. Murrow awards, several Online Journalism Awards, among others. She was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.
Anna van Koetsveld
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: Germany
Current location: Hamburg, Germany
Role: Chief of Staff to Executive Board at Bauer Media Group
After studying International Management and Studies (B.A.Sc., The Netherlands & South Korea) and Media Management (Executive MBA, Germany), Anna van Koetsveld gained 10 years of experience at the publishing house Gruner + Jahr. In addition to various positions in the publishing house, including in the publishing management of the Food and Women brands and the development of a new brand for personal and professional development for women, she moved to the Bauer Media Group in May 2020, where she is responsible for Bauer Women KG as Deputy Publishing Director. There, she is responsible for the print business and in particular for the further development of the brands.
Rossalyn Warren
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Current location: London, United Kingdon
Role: Audience Editor, Reuters
Rossalyn Warren is a journalist, digital consultant, and currently the Digital Outreach Director for the Global Investigative Journalism Network. As a consultant, she helps media companies develop new products and find ways to reach new readers. Her expertise in this space led her to give evidence for an inquiry into the future of journalism to Lords in Parliament in 2020.
Warren has contributed reporting to the Guardian, CNN, and Vox, and she was previously a senior journalist for BuzzFeed News where she helped launch the UK’s news coverage. In 2018, she was selected as an Ochberg Fellow at Columbia University’s Graduate Journalism School and won a European Union Migration Media award. In 2017, Forbes selected her for its “30 Under 30” in media list in Europe.