Better Leaders

About Our Guest: 

Federica Cherubini is the Director of Leadership Development at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. She is an expert in newsroom operations and organizational change, with ten years experience spanning major publishers, research institutes and editorial networks around the world.

Before working at the Reuters Institute, she worked as a consultant to develop a more inclusive, sustainable, and communicative work environment at Hearken. However, she began her development journey at Condé Nast International where she worked in outreach and found her passion for personal and professional growth. 

Apart from being passionate about development and growth, she works hard in engaging with organizations at all levels to spread awareness for the importance of diversity and inclusivity, and build bridges between the gap between senior management and often younger workers, whose values of what it means to work have changed. 

About Your Host:

Anita Zielina is the CEO and founder of Better Leaders Lab. She's also an Executive in Residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she spent the last few years leading all continuing and executive education initiatives. Anita serves as the inaugural Board Chair of News Product Alliance (NPA) and is a member of the board of directors at the Austrian Public Broadcaster ORF.

For the past 15 years, Anita held senior executive positions focused on product, strategy and innovation in various media and education organizations as Chief Product Officer, Managing Editor Digital, Editor-in-Chief and Director Strategic Initiatives. She has worked with around 500 managers, leaders and entrepreneurs as a consultant, coach and educator.

She holds a Master in Law from Vienna University and an Executive MBA from INSEAD. Anita is an alumna of the Stanford Knight Journalism Fellowship and the Oxford Reuters Institute Fellowship. 

About Better Leaders Lab:

Better Leaders Lab is a Do and Think Tank for good leadership and smart management in media and beyond and a boutique strategic advisory firm. BLL specializes in organizational change, strategy and scenario planning, leadership development and executive recruiting research. Its goal is to empower managers, leaders and organizations in the broader media, digital & innovation space to build successful, sustainable, modern and healthy businesses.

Learn more:

https://betterleaderslab.com

Get in touch

Feedback or questions related to the podcast?
[email protected]

You can also find us at Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and now YouTube!

About Our Guest:

Styli Charalambous co-founded the Daily Maverick in 2009, while navigating massive industry disruption and South Africas turbulent politics.

As founding CEO and publisher, Styli helped grow Daily Maverick from a 5 person start-up to now more than 100 full-time staff, reaching 9 Million monthly unique visitors with 20.000 voluntary paying members.

He is passionate about leadership and innovation focusing on new revenue models, product, technology and membership in news. In 2021, he was awarded South Africa’s top journalism award for courage and integrity for his shaping role in Daily Maverick’s success.

About Your Host:

Anita Zielina is the CEO and founder of Better Leaders Lab. She's also an Executive in Residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she spent the last few years leading all continuing and executive education initiatives. Anita serves as the inaugural Board Chair of News Product Alliance (NPA) and is a member of the board of directors at the Austrian Public Broadcaster ORF.

For the past 15 years, Anita held senior executive positions focused on product, strategy and innovation in various media and education organizations as Chief Product Officer, Managing Editor Digital, Editor-in-Chief and Director Strategic Initiatives. She has worked with around 500 managers, leaders and entrepreneurs as a consultant, coach and educator.

She holds a Master in Law from Vienna University and an Executive MBA from INSEAD. Anita is an alumna of the Stanford Knight Journalism Fellowship and the Oxford Reuters Institute Fellowship. 

About Better Leaders Lab

Better Leaders Lab is a Do and Think Tank for good leadership and smart management in media and beyond and a boutique strategic advisory firm. BLL specializes in organizational change, strategy and scenario planning, leadership development and executive recruiting research. Its goal is to empower managers, leaders and organizations in the broader media, digital & innovation space to build successful, sustainable, modern and healthy businesses.

Learn more:

https://betterleaderslab.com

Get in touch

Feedback or questions related to the podcast?
[email protected]

About Our Guest:

Graciela Mochkofsky is the dean at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where she was previously the executive director of its Center for Community Media, and founding director of its Bilingual Journalism Program. The Newmark Graduate School of Journalism is located in Midtown Manhattan. It's the only public J-School in the Northeastern U.S. and is dedicated to training a diverse and innovative generation of journalists.

Graciela is a contributing writer for The New Yorker, and the author of seven books of nonfiction, including “The Prophet of the Andes: An Unlikely Journey to the Promised Land” (Knopf, 2022.) She is a native of Argentina and a recipient of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for outstanding reporting across the Americas.

About Your Host:

Anita Zielina is the CEO and founder of Better Leaders Lab. She's also an Executive in Residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she spent the last few years leading all continuing and executive education initiatives. Anita serves as the inaugural Board Chair of News Product Alliance (NPA) and is a member of the board of directors at the Austrian Public Broadcaster ORF.

For the past 15 years, Anita held senior executive positions focused on product, strategy and innovation in various media and education organizations as Chief Product Officer, Managing Editor Digital, Editor-in-Chief and Director Strategic Initiatives. She has worked with around 500 managers, leaders and entrepreneurs as a consultant, coach and educator.

She holds a Master in Law from Vienna University and an Executive MBA from INSEAD. Anita is an alumna of the Stanford Knight Journalism Fellowship and the Oxford Reuters Institute Fellowship. 

About Better Leaders Lab

Better Leaders Lab is a Do and Think Tank for good leadership and smart management in media and beyond and a boutique strategic advisory firm. BLL specializes in organizational change, strategy and scenario planning, leadership development and executive recruiting research. Its goal is to empower managers, leaders and organizations in the broader media, digital & innovation space to build successful, sustainable, modern and healthy businesses.

Learn more:

https://betterleaderslab.com

Get in touch

Feedback or questions related to the podcast?
[email protected]

About Our Guest:

Rafat Ali is the CEO & Founder of Skift, the most influential business media & information company in the travel industry, providing news, research, events, and creative services to key stakeholders globally.

Previously, he was the founder/CEO of paidContent and ContentNext, which he sold to UK’s Guardian News and Media in 2008, and left in 2010. Prior to that, he was managing editor of Silicon Alley Reporter. 

Rafat was the Knight Fellow at Indiana University, where he completed his Masters in Journalism, 1999-2000. Prior to that he completed his BSc in Computer Engineering, from AMU in Aligarh, India.

About Your Host:

Anita Zielina is the CEO and founder of Better Leaders Lab. She's also an Executive in Residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she spent the last few years leading all continuing and executive education initiatives. Anita serves as the inaugural Board Chair of News Product Alliance (NPA) and is a member of the board of directors at the Austrian Public Broadcaster ORF.

For the past 15 years, Anita held senior executive positions focused on product, strategy and innovation in various media and education organizations as Chief Product Officer, Managing Editor Digital, Editor-in-Chief and Director Strategic Initiatives. She has worked with around 500 managers, leaders and entrepreneurs as a consultant, coach and educator.

She holds a Master in Law from Vienna University and an Executive MBA from INSEAD. Anita is an alumna of the Stanford Knight Journalism Fellowship and the Oxford Reuters Institute Fellowship. 

About Better Leaders Lab

Better Leaders Lab is a Do and Think Tank for good leadership and smart management in media and beyond and a boutique strategic advisory firm. BLL specializes in organizational change, strategy and scenario planning, leadership development and executive recruiting research. Its goal is to empower managers, leaders and organizations in the broader media, digital & innovation space to build successful, sustainable, modern and healthy businesses.

Learn more:

https://betterleaderslab.com

Get in touch

Feedback or questions related to the podcast?
[email protected]

About Our Guest:

Paul Cheung leads The Center for Public Integrity, one of the oldest and most diverse investigative nonprofit news organizations in America, as CEO to hold the powerful to account, expose systems of inequality and equip the public with knowledge to drive change. Their reporting has led to hundreds of law and policy changes and forced federal and state governments to release information critical to the public interest.

Previously, Cheung managed a $50 million dollar investment portfolio at the Knight Foundation to scale AI, business sustainability solutions, and mitigating misinformation. He has 20 years of experience in leading digital transformation at media outlets including NBC News Digital, The Associated Press, The Miami Herald, and The Wall Street Journal.

Cheung serves on the boards of Center for Disaster Philanthropy and News Leaders Association. He is a Council member of University of Florida’s Consortium on Trust in Media and Technology and co-leads the Asian American Journalists Association’s executive leadership program in US and Asia. Cheung is a graduate of the 2016 Punch Sulzberger Executive Leadership program at Columbia University and an alumnus of New York University.

About Your Host:

Anita Zielina is the CEO and founder of Better Leaders Lab. She's also an Executive in Residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she spent the last few years leading all continuing and executive education initiatives. Anita serves as the inaugural Board Chair of News Product Alliance (NPA) and is a member of the board of directors at the Austrian Public Broadcaster ORF.

For the past 15 years, Anita held senior executive positions focused on product, strategy and innovation in various media and education organizations as Chief Product Officer, Managing Editor Digital, Editor-in-Chief and Director Strategic Initiatives. She has worked with around 500 managers, leaders and entrepreneurs as a consultant, coach and educator.

She holds a Master in Law from Vienna University and an Executive MBA from INSEAD. Anita is an alumna of the Stanford Knight Journalism Fellowship and the Oxford Reuters Institute Fellowship. 

About Better Leaders Lab

Better Leaders Lab is a Do and Think Tank for good leadership and smart management in media and beyond and a boutique strategic advisory firm. BLL specializes in organizational change, strategy and scenario planning, leadership development and executive recruiting research. Its goal is to empower managers, leaders and organizations in the broader media, digital & innovation space to build successful, sustainable, modern and healthy businesses.

Learn more:

https://betterleaderslab.com

Get in touch

Feedback or questions related to the podcast?
[email protected]

About Our Guest:

Hillary Frey is the editor in chief of Slate Magazine, an audio and online destination for smart analysis of news and culture, and the home of Dear Prudence and myriad advice columns. Before joining Slate in June 2021, Hillary was a creator in residence at the Newmark School of Journalism at CUNY, and a graduate of the school's Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership. Previously she was executive editor of HuffPost, editorial director of news at NBCNews.com, and media and culture editor at the New York Observer (among other things!). 

She 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.

About Your Host:

Anita Zielina is the CEO and founder of Better Leaders Lab. She's also an Executive in Residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she spent the last few years leading all continuing and executive education initiatives. Anita serves as the inaugural Board Chair of News Product Alliance (NPA) and is a member of the board of directors at the Austrian Public Broadcaster ORF.

For the past 15 years, Anita held senior executive positions focused on product, strategy and innovation in various media and education organizations as Chief Product Officer, Managing Editor Digital, Editor-in-Chief and Director Strategic Initiatives. She has worked with around 500 managers, leaders and entrepreneurs as a consultant, coach and educator.

She holds a Master in Law from Vienna University and an Executive MBA from INSEAD. Anita is an alumna of the Stanford Knight Journalism Fellowship and the Oxford Reuters Institute Fellowship. 

About Better Leaders Lab

Better Leaders Lab is a Do and Think Tank for good leadership and strategic management in media and beyond and a boutique strategic advisory firm. BLL specializes in organizational change, strategy and scenario planning, leadership development and executive recruiting research. Its goal is to empower managers, leaders and organizations in the broader media, digital & innovation space to build successful, sustainable, modern and healthy businesses.

Learn more:

https://betterleaderslab.com

Get in touch

Feedback or questions related to the podcast?
[email protected]

About Our Guest

In Upasna's role as Product Manager on the Digital News Platforms team at CNN, she works with CNN's engineers, designers, editors, and journalists to develop and optimize the content management technology that delivers breaking news to the world. Upasna has been working in the tech industry for the last 15 years, where she has been an integral part of delivering technical, data-informed solutions for brands such as Ford Motor Company, Valvoline, PCMag, Mashable, Mars Corporation, and Kimberly-Clark.

Outside of her day job at CNN, Upasna is an avid public speaker, tech career coach, meditation teacher, and a Community Lead with Google's Women Techmakers. In 2022, Upasna was awarded a Top Product Coach honor by Reforge. Upasna was recently appointed to the News Product Alliance Board of Directors and is excited to serve her first term in March.
About Your Host:

Anita Zielina is the CEO and founder of Better Leaders Lab. She's also an Executive in Residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she spent the last few years leading all continuing and executive education initiatives. Anita serves as the inaugural Board Chair of News Product Alliance (NPA) and is a member of the board of directors at the Austrian Public Broadcaster ORF.

For the past 15 years, Anita held senior executive positions focused on product, strategy and innovation in various media and education organizations as Chief Product Officer, Managing Editor Digital, Editor-in-Chief and Director Strategic Initiatives. She has worked with around 500 managers, leaders and entrepreneurs as a consultant, coach and educator.

She holds a Master in Law from Vienna University and an Executive MBA from INSEAD. Anita is an alumna of the Stanford Knight Journalism Fellowship and the Oxford Reuters Institute Fellowship. 

About Better Leaders Lab

Better Leaders Lab is a Do and Think Tank for good leadership and strategic management in media and beyond and a boutique strategic advisory firm. BLL specializes in organizational change, strategy and scenario planning, leadership development and executive recruiting research. Its goal is to empower managers, leaders and organizations in the broader media, digital & innovation space to build successful, sustainable, modern and healthy businesses.

Learn more:

https://betterleaderslab.com

Get in touch

Feedback or questions related to the podcast?
[email protected]

About Our Guest:

Sara Weber, born in 1987, is a journalist, bestselling author, and digital strategist. She majored in journalism and book science and graduated from Germany’s oldest journalism school Deutsche Journalistenschule. She worked as a freelance writer for Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Spiegel, among others. As Senior Managing Editor of LinkedIn, she was the face of the network in Germany until she quit her job in 2021. Her main topics are the future of work, business and digitization. She just published her book: "The world is ending and I still have to work?" - exploring how multiple crises impact a generation that is questioning if work is everything and is aiming to rethink the way we work. The German-American lives in Munich. 

About Your Host:

Anita Zielina is the CEO and founder of Better Leaders Lab. She's also an Executive in Residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she spent the last few years leading all continuing and executive education initiatives. Anita serves as the inaugural Board Chair of News Product Alliance (NPA) and is a member of the board of directors at the Austrian Public Broadcaster ORF.

For the past 15 years, Anita held senior executive positions focused on product, strategy and innovation in various media and education organizations as Chief Product Officer, Managing Editor Digital, Editor-in-Chief and Director Strategic Initiatives. She has worked with around 500 managers, leaders and entrepreneurs as a consultant, coach and educator.

She holds a Master in Law from Vienna University and an Executive MBA from INSEAD. Anita is an alumna of the Stanford Knight Journalism Fellowship and the Oxford Reuters Institute Fellowship.

About Better Leaders Lab

Better Leaders Lab is a Do and Think Tank for good leadership and strategic management in media and beyond and a boutique strategic advisory firm. BLL specializes in organizational change, strategy and scenario planning, leadership development and executive recruiting research. Its goal is to empower managers, leaders and organizations in the broader media, digital & innovation space to build successful, sustainable, modern and healthy businesses.

Learn more:

https://betterleaderslab.com

Get in touch

Feedback or questions related to the podcast?
[email protected]

 

About Our Guest:

Trei Brundrett is a co-founder and the former Chief Operating Officer of Vox Media, where he oversaw the highest priority cross-company initiatives and directed the Design, Technology and Product groups. He now provides strategic leadership, media and technology consulting services to investment firms, media companies and non-profit organizations.

At Vox Media, he led the team responsible for developing Chorus, Vox Media's modern media platform designed from the ground up to launch premium digital media brands and deliver content and community. Trei was instrumental in growing Vox Media from a collection of sports blogs to a ground-breaking media organization with a portfolio of leading brands including SB Nation, The Verge, Polygon, Eater, Curbed, Vox, Recode, New York Magazine, Vulture, The Cut, GrubStreet, NowThisNews, Thrillist, The Dodo, and PopSugar. He was named to The AdWeek 50, which wrote, "Under Brundrett’s direction, Vox Media has evolved into one of the most agile Web-based publishers."

Previously, as the co-founder of the boutique digital strategy firm Handwire, Trei led large-scale internet strategy, advertising and development projects for Fortune 500 companies, national non-profits and media clients such as Microsoft XBOX, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Royal Dutch Shell, and Texas Monthly. Trei also led the digital technology and strategy efforts for Senator Mark Warner's 2008 presidential bid.

He serves as the Vice Chair on the board of The Texas Tribune, co-chairs the philanthropy committee of The McDonald Observatory Board of Visitors and is an advisor to OpenNews. He studied History and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He lives in Montclair, NJ with his wife, four children and their dog, Lucy.

About Your Host:

Anita Zielina is the CEO and founder of Better Leaders Lab. She's also an Executive in Residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she spent the last few years leading all continuing and executive education initiatives. Anita serves as the inaugural Board Chair of News Product Alliance (NPA) and is a member of the board of directors at the Austrian Public Broadcaster ORF.

For the past 15 years, Anita held senior executive positions focused on product, strategy and innovation in various media and education organizations as Chief Product Officer, Managing Editor Digital, Editor-in-Chief and Director Strategic Initiatives. She has worked with around 500 managers, leaders and entrepreneurs as a consultant, coach and educator.

She holds a Master in Law from Vienna University and an Executive MBA from INSEAD. Anita is an alumna of the Stanford Knight Journalism Fellowship and the Oxford Reuters Institute Fellowship.

About Better Leaders Lab

Better Leaders Lab is a Do and Think Tank for good leadership and strategic management in media and beyond and a boutique strategic advisory firm. BLL specializes in organizational change, strategy and scenario planning, leadership development and executive recruiting research. Its goal is to empower managers, leaders and organizations in the broader media, digital & innovation space to build successful, sustainable, modern and healthy businesses.

Learn more:

https://betterleaderslab.com

Get in touch

Feedback or questions related to the podcast?
[email protected]