Chia Ting Ting is the chief commercial officer and head of advertising at Malaysia’s largest online news portal, Malaysiakini that appreciates something that many press advocates overlook: independent journalism requires financial independence as well.

Malaysiakini was launched in 1999. Ting Ting joined in 2008 and started building the kind of revenue streams sought by online media companies around the world. By staying in tune with global developments in media and advertising and building relationships with mentors in the commercial advertising sector, Ting Ting has kept Malaysiakini in a position to challenge those in power.

Under Ting Ting’s leadership, Malaysiakini has begun to offer premium advertising options and revamped the site’s layout to increase click-through rates. Malaysiakini is now experimenting with native advertising, ads that look and feel like the other articles on Malaysiakini’s site—though are clearly demarcated as paid-for—to move beyond the low impact and revenues provided by ad networks.