Anita Zielina is an Executive in Residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. In this role, she coaches, teaches and advises participants in numerous J+ programs, such as the Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership that she launched in 2019 and led during the first three cohorts.
Anita is an experienced digital media executive with a focus on digital transformation, modern leadership and strategic management. Before joining CUNY in New York City, she held management roles in various European media organizations and led their transformation efforts.
Her last industry role was as chief product officer and member of the management board at NZZ Media Group in Switzerland, where she was responsible for all digital products. Before that, she was the digital editor and deputy editor-in-chief at STERN, the German weekly news magazine, and reporter and editor at the newspaper DER STANDARD in her hometown Vienna.
Anita was the first Austrian journalist selected for the fully funded Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University, dedicated to entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership in journalism. There, she did research on innovation management in media and user engagement. She also was a visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, focusing on questions around changing leadership in media. Anita holds an Executive MBA from INSEAD and a Master in Law from Vienna University.
She is a non-executive board member at the Online News Association (ONA) and the Austrian Public Broadcaster (ORF), as well as the inaugural board chair of the News Product Alliance (NPA). Anita is the founder of Better Leaders Lab, a Do and Think Tank for Good Leadership and Strategic Management.