Intervenants | World News Media Congress

World News Media Congress

12 Jun 2016 to 14 Jun 2016
Cartagena
Colombia

World Editors Forum · World Advertising Forum

Intervenants | World News Media Congress

Intervenants

President of the Republic of Colombia

Born in Bogota on August 10, 1951. He was a cadet at the Navy Academy in Cartagena; he studied Economics and Business Administration and carried out graduate studies at the London School of Economics, Harvard University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

He was Chief of the Colombian delegation before the International Coffee Organization (ICO) in London; he was the most recent Designate to the Presidency and Colombia’s first Foreign Trade Minister. He has also been Finance Minister and National Defense Minister. During this last position, he was in charge of leading the implementation of the government’s Democratic Security Policy.

He created the Good Government Foundation (Fundación Buen Gobierno) and founded the political party Partido de la U in the year 2005, currently Colombia’s largest political party.

As a journalist he was a columnist and Deputy Director of the newspaper El Tiempo, he was awarded the King of Spain Prize and was president of the Freedom of Expression Commission for the Inter American Press Association (IAPA). He has published several books, among which the most significant are The Third Way, co-written with the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Check on Terror (Jaque al Terror), where he describes the most important actions against the Farc terrorist group during his tenure as head of the Ministry of Defense.

On June 20, 2010, (after obtaining the largest vote during the first round of the presidential elections which took place on May 30 of the same year) at the second round of the presidential elections, he was elected President of the Republic of Colombia for the four year period between August 7th, 2010 and August 7th, 2014. He obtained more than 9 million votes, the highest amount obtained by any candidate in the history of Colombian democracy.

During his campaign, he promised to lead a government of national unity that would carry out the transition from Democratic Security to Democratic Prosperity.

On June 15, 2014, in the second round and with more than 7.8 million votes, he was reelected as President of the Republic for the 2014 - 2018 constitutional term with a government plan based on three pillars: Peace, Equity and Education.
President Santos is married to María Clemencia Rodríguez, with whom he has three children: Martín, María Antonia and Esteban.

General Director & Co-founder, Gabriel García Márquez Journalism Foundation (FNPI), Colombia

General director and co-founder of the Gabriel García Márquez Journalism Foundation (FNPI), an organization established in 1994 in Cartagena, Colombia, by Gabriel García Márquez, with the mission to work for journalism excellence and training of journalists, so that there are better informed societies in Latin American and the Caribbean.

Before joining the Foundation he had been, between 1990 and 1994, director of Telecaribe, a regional public television channel in the Colombian Caribbean coast. He graduated from Law School at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, but his career has been devoted to the fields of communication, culture and support independent journalism.

Mr Abello participates regularly in boards, forums for debate and advisory councils of these sectors, as in the case of the Council of Global Agenda of the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2010 and 2011 as well as the steering committee of the GFMD (Global Forum for Media Development), an international alliance of leading organizations supporting programs and development of media.

Founder & Director of the Knight Center for Journalism, University of Texas, USA

Rosental Calmon Alves is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Knight Chair in Journalism and the UNESCO Chair in Communication and is also the founder and director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. Created in 2002, the center has benefited thousands of journalists around the world with training programs. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the center has helped journalists to create a new generation of organizations dedicated to elevating the professional and ethical standards of journalism in their countries. In 2016, he was awarded with the Maria Moors Cabot Prize.

Deputy Editor, El Tiempo, Colombia

Jineth is a journalist and international speaker on armed conflict, drug trafficking, and gender violence. She is currently Deputy Editor of the newspaper EL TIEMPO.

She has published nine books on the armed conflict in Colombia and organised crime investigations. Her work has made her won several international awards such as the World Courage Award for Journalism (2001), the International Women of Courage Award (2012), the IAPA Press Freedom Award (2019), and the last one, UNESCO's World Press Freedom Award in 2020.

In 2009, when she made her case public, after 9 years of being kidnapped, tortured, and sexually assaulted, she created the campaign "No Es Hora De Callar" campaign (Now is not the time to remain silent), that managed to raise awareness on gender violence among victims like her.

Since 2008 she has been training journalists from Colombia and other countries in Latin America on how to correctly address gender-based violence in the media.

In 2013, she ranked among the top 100 most influential journalists covering wars and violence.

In 2014, the Colombian government, by presidential decree, declared the date May the 25th (day of her kidnapping) as the National Day to Dignify the Victims of Sexual Violence.
 
She was part of the group of victims that participated in the peace negotiation between the government of Colombia and the FARC guerrillas in Havana, Cuba. Her involvement and work in these negotiations made it possible for sexual violence to be incorporated into the agreements as a penalty crime, not subject to pardon.

In 2016 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work advocating for the rights of women and victims of sexual violence.

She is currently leading the regional initiative #MyVoiceAccount to decry the commercial sexual exploitation of children and teenagers.

Publisher, Vox Media, USA

Melissa Bell is Publisher at Vox Media. Together with Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein, Bell cofounded Vox.com in the spring of 2014. Previously, Bell was the Director of Platforms at the Washington Post and a columnist for the paper. Bell is a journalist turned technologist, an unusual breed in news organizations today.

Executive Editor, STAT, USA

Rick Berke is the founding Executive Editor of STAT, which was launched in November 2015 and now has a staff of more than 50. The aim has been to build a world-class news organization based in Boston -- the epicenter of medicine, health and biotech -- but with reporters nationwide. STAT was created as a separate company by Boston Globe Media, the parent company of The Boston Globe, which was bought by businessman John Henry in 2013. Already, STAT has won numerous national awards for it investigative work and for its innovations in digital storytelling.
Berke was previously a longtime reporter and editor at The New York Times, where he served as White House correspondent, chief political correspondent, Washington editor, national editor, video content editor, and assistant managing editor. More recently, Rick was executive editor at Politico.

Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director, Kristeligt Dagblad, Denmark

Erik Bjerager, Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director of the Danish national daily Kristeligt Dagblad, is the immediate Past President of the World Editors Forum, the global association for senior newsrooms executives within the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

Bjerager has served as Editor-in-Chief of Kristeligt Dagblad since 1994. He became Managing Director of the daily a year later. He has been a member of the WEF Board since 2001. In Denmark, he is chairman of the board of the media-owned national news agency, Ritzau. He has been the chairman of the Danish Press Foundation since 2001, and is currently the chairman of the Copenhagen's Editors Association.

Bjerager, who has published several books, has been awarded the Berlingske Foundation's Journalists Prize and the Jubilee Prize of the National Press Club of Denmark.

Founder, Sparknews, France

Christian de Boisredon created Sparknews, an organisation that works with notable media sources from more than fifty countries to spread solutions-based journalism. Notably, this is achieved through Impact Journalism Day, a collaborative project that brings together more than 55 leading newspapers from around the world (Sunday Times, Times of India, Le Figaro, Asahi Shimbun, La Nación, Tages-Anzeiger, Le Soir etc.) Each newspaper writes one or two articles about innovative solutions linked to important societal issues (health, education, environment, etc.) that have a significant social or environmental impact. The operation then reaches more than 120 million readers and, for many newspapers, there is an increase in distribution and sales, as well as positive feedback. One of the newspapers is even able to sell advertising for five times its usual price.

Furthermore, Sparknews brings editors-in-chief of partner newspapers together each year for a seminar focusing on solutions-based journalism.

A similar project to IJD called Solutions&Co has also been launched with economic newspapers (Les Echos, Financial Times, Handelsblatt, Kommersant etc.) and Sparknews is preparing another project with France’s regional press.

Americas Director, WAN-IFRA

Rodrigo Bonilla is one of the Cultural Change Ignition Program Managers. 

He's Regional Director for the Americas, at WAN-IFRA, the World Association of News Publishers. He heads WAN-IFRA’s operations for North and Latin America based out of Mexico City. Rodrigo joined WAN-IFRA as Manager of Press Freedom Missions in January 2010, leading the organisation’s advocacy missions worldwide. In 2013, he went on to manage WAN-IFRA’s overall activities in Latin America and launched the LATAM edition of WAN-IFRA’s prestigious Digital Media Conferences, which has since become the go-to event for the region’s most innovative media leaders. The Americas office monitors industry’s trends and offers services to the organization's members and partners across the continent. 

Rodrigo graduated in both History and Political Science from the University of La Sorbonne, Paris, and holds a Master Degree in International Cooperation and Development from the same institution. 

President, WAN-IFRA, Sweden

Tomas Brunegård

Tomas Brunegård is the President of WAN-IFRA and former Chairman of the Board of Sweden's Stampen Group. From 2004 to 2012 he was CEO of Stampen. Previously, he was CEO of Göteborgs-Posten from 1996-2004. Before that, he was Deputy COO of Burger King Sweden from 1993-1996. From 1987-1993, he was Management Consultant for Ingemar Claesson Konsult AB. Brunegård is a Board Member for several organisations, including:

  • Skäreleja AB (Majority owner Stampen Group)
  • Stena Line BV (Holland)
  • Mentor Medier AS (Norway)
  • Fojo Media Institute
  • Swedish Radio AB
  • University of Gothenburg
  • Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre

co-Director, InternetLab, Brazil

Francisco holds a master’s degree in Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law from the University of São Paulo (Brazil), where he also earned his bachelor of laws degree (LL.B., 2011). He is a member of Brazil’s Empirical Legal Research Network \ (REED) and winner of the “Brazil’s Internet Framework Bill & Development Award” (Google/FGV-SP). In 2013, Francisco was a visiting researcher at the Center for the Study of Law and Society from the University of California at Berkeley. He was also a teaching assistant at Fundação Getulio Vargas Law School. Between 2012 and 2014, he acted as the coordinator of the Internet, Law & Society Nucleus at the University of São Paulo (NDIS-USP). Currently Francisco works with Internet policy monitoring and analysis-production. 

President, World Editors Forum, USA

David was Chief Executive Officer of TheStreet, Inc., a New York-based financial news and information company, from mid-2016 until February, 2019. TheStreet was comprised of five businesses based in the U.S., the UK and India, with more than 600 employees, and including its flagship website, TheStreet.com. Most of the businesses were sold in late 2018 and David left to devote his energies to fighting for journalism through WEF.

Before joining TheStreet as CEO in 2016, David was Editor-in-Chief of USA Today, responsible for news coverage on America’s largest newspaper and fifth-largest digital news portfolio. David directed more than 400 journalists and worked with another 3,000 tied to 100 newspapers owned by USA Today parent company Gannett Inc.

 David joined USA Today in mid-2012 from MarketWatch, where he was also Editor-in-Chief. David ran MarketWatch through eight years of ownership by Dow Jones Co. and subsequently, News Corp., and four years before that as a public company which owned the website CBS MarketWatch. Dave also wrote a weekly column for MarketWatch, and was twice honored by the Society of American Editors and Writers for his commentary.

Before joining MarketWatch, Dave spent five years working for Bloomberg, almost all of it in London, where he ran a team that covered the financial services industry throughout Europe. Before Bloomberg, he spent six years as a reporter and columnist for The Boston Herald. He’s a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and currently splits his time between New York City and Corte Madera, Ca.

David Callaway is president of the World Editor’s Forum, a unit of WAN-IFRA, and a board member for the International Center for Journalists.

Academic Coordinator, LATAM Cultural Change Ignition Program

Diego is a Digital Growth & Transformation Expert. He has vast experience in designing, structuring and leading Operations and Content teams and a proven track record of tangible audience and income uplift, both in the U.S. Hispanic market as well as in Latin America.

He is currently Regional Digital Director for Discovery LATAM & US Hispanics.

In the US, he led the Product and Strategy for Discovery DLA: tudiscovery.com and Discoverybrasil.com. Previously, he was VP of Product and Digital Operations for UNIVISION (Noticias, Deportes & Entretenimiento), Univision Connecta & UFORIA APP.

In Latin America, he was Digital Managing Director for ICCK (Digital arm of Grupo Santo Domingo), Colombia's largest and most diverse media holding, with brands such as EL ESPECTADOR, CARACOL TELEVISIÓN, BLU RADIO, GOL CARACOL, CINECOLOMBIA, SHOCK, CROMOS.

Prior to that, he was Digital Managing Director for EL TIEMPO Casa Editorial, covering the strategies of media brands EL TIEMPO, PORTAFOLIO, CITYTV, VIVEIN, ALO, MUJERES, MOTOR, REVISTA DON JUAN ABC DEL BEBÉ.

He worked in content marketing as Head of Innovation, content and operations at pioneer digital agency Indexcol for regional clients such as Coca-Cola Latin Center Division & Warner Bros Theatrical.

He has spoken at several WAN-IFRA events in Latin America and Europe, as well as INMA, SIP, Hispanicsize Miami, Silicon Beach Fest, Digital Futuro Forum Miami, and many more. 

Publisher, Vanguardia, Mexico

Armando Castilla Galindo, Managing Director for Vanguardia,  grew from within the newspaper company to reach his current position. He studied Economics and Finance at ITESM in 1999, and a MBA at IPADE in 2006. He is a passionate journalist renowned for his innovative and ground-breaking work in the digital media.

His vision for storytelling has positioned Vanguardia among the best publications worldwide.  In 2014, he received the honor of being mentioned by the King of Spain at the "Don Quijote" Awards, in addition to numerous other national awards in human rights, science, technology and health.

With him at the forefront, Vanguardia has survived a series of attacks that sought to silence it. In 2012, he was elected Vice President Of the Mexican Press Freedom Committee (IAPA), where his work focused on highlighting the risks journalist face when reporting in Mexico.

Armando is also an active citizen in his community and a Board Member of the Institute of Higher Studies of Monterrey that was created to spur innovation in education in Mexico.

Armando Castilla is a bold leader in the bid to take editorial and advertising initiatives to the next level. His philosophy lies in the belief that it is better to undo wrongs than never taking a life changing decision. He has earned worldwide recognition for his avant-garde thinking regarding social media strategies, and currently is working on a project on custom, printed editions for potential commercial purposes.

Armando is a Board Member of the WAN-IFRA Latin American Committee.

Global Editor-in-Chief, AFP, France

Phil Chetwynd was appointed AFP's Paris-based Global Editor-in-Chief in October 2012. He is responsible for the output of some 1,500 text, photo and video journalists and plays a major role in driving the agency's evolving multimedia strategy around the world.

He joined AFP in 1996 after three years in British regional newspapers and has since been posted in the Middle East, Europe and Asia. He reported as a special correspondent from some 20 countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel and the United States in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Chetwynd was also AFP's Deputy Bureau Chief in China for two years. Between 2002 and 2012, he was based in Hong Kong as first News Editor and then Chief Editor for the Asia-Pacific region where he gained widespread experience managing major global stories such as the 2004 and 2011 tsunamis, the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the rise of China.

He set up AFP's first multimedia integrated newsroom in Hong Kong and played a major role in launching the video service in Asia.

Director, Digital Strategy, GFR Media, Puerto Rico

Selymar Colón is an award-winning journalist. Colón spent the 2020 academic year as a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Before her fellowship, she served as editor-in-chief of digital news at Univision, where she built a team of multimedia journalists and drove the network’s digital integration. A digital pioneer, Colón championed the use of social media in the newsroom and created the first team of multimedia news producers to incorporate digital-only videos into the company’s news strategy.   

Her honors include Emmy Awards, a Gabo Award for Best Image, and an Edward R. Murrow Award. She also led her team to win several National Press Photographers Association awards and a World Press Photo for best Digital Video, among others.

Managing Director of Global Partnerships, News and Publishing, Google, USA

As Managing Director of Global Partnerships, News and Publishing at Google, Laurent is in charge of defining and implementing Google solutions for the News and Magazines industry. Laurent and his team are working with the largest news and magazine companies helping them to develop successful digital strategies. Laurent has over fifteen years of experience in the technology and media space. He joined Google nine years ago and has held several positions within Google’s display organization in Europe and in the US. This includes Head of Operations for Display Sales in Europe, where he launched DoubleClick Ad Exchange and drove the adoption of programmatic opportunities by media agencies and publishers. Prior to joining Google, Laurent led the public segment for Dell Computers in Western Europe, and spent ten years in management consulting focusing on high tech and media sectors. Laurent holds an engineering degree in telecommunications and has a postgraduate degree in finance.

Publisher and CEO, The Globe and Mail, Canada

Phillip Crawley is the Publisher and CEO of The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. He worked in Europe, Asia and New Zealand before he joined The Globe and Mail in October 1998 as President and COO. He was appointed Publisher and CEO in June 1999. In print for 165 years, The Globe and Mail has consistently delivered Canada's best and deepest coverage of national, international and business news. With a cumulative six-day readership total of over 2.4 million, The Globe and Mail has a wide and a highly loyal readership.

President and Publisher of La Presse, Canada

Guy Crevier has been President of Gesca and Publisher of La Presse, a multiplatform French-language news medium of record in Canada, since 2000. In recent years, Mr. Crevier has led the company’s transition to a new digital business model with the launch of La Presse+, a digital edition for tablet that blends the best of print media, the Web, mobile applications and video. The enormous success of La Presse+ with readers and advertisers led to his decision to cease publication of the weekday print edition of La Presse on January 1, 2016, and to replace it with La Presse+. At the same time, he began commercializing the La Presse+ digital platform to other publishers. Prior to this major digital shift, Mr. Crevier had already outsourced the printing of La Presse and expanded the company’s publishing platforms. He also oversaw diversification of the company’s operations into many areas, including the development of digital businesses, television production and book publishing. A veteran of more than 30 years in the communications field, Mr. Crevier has held executive positions in several major companies. Prior to becoming President of Gesca and Publisher of La Presse in 2000, he served as, among others, President of Canada’s largest French-language television network (TVA) and of a cable company (Vidéotron), as well as being a member of the executive team of Telesystem and President of the film and television producer and distributor Motion International.

CEO, NZZ Mediengruppe, Switzerland

Since 2013, Veit Dengler is the CEO of NZZ-Mediengruppe, the media group built around its Swiss flagship “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”.  

Veit has been leading the group’s transformation process from a traditional newspaper publisher to a modern media group focusing on its heritage of high-quality journalism, while also expanding its business data and conferences businesses.

In the late 1980s, Veit worked as a stringer for TIME Magazine. He was in marketing at Procter & Gamble, spent seven years with McKinsey, and held management positions at T-Mobile and Dell, where he most recently served as General Manager and Executive Director for Eastern Europe and Russia.

Veit holds a Master’s degree in Commerce from the Vienna Business School and a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School. In 2012, he co-founded NEOS, a liberal party in Austria which in 2013 won representation in parliament.

President, Groupe Le Monde, France

Louis Dreyfus is the President and Publisher of the French Groupe Le Monde. He is also President of Huffington Post France and leads the board of directors of weekly magazines Télérama and Courrier International. He is a board member of Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Vice-President of the supervisory board of news publisher Groupe Nouvel Observateur.

Dreyfus graduated from the HEC Business School and London School of Economics (LSE). He held executive positions at Hachette Filipacchi Médias (HFM) in the U.S. and France, and at the French daily newspaper Libération.

Senior Analyst, BIA-Kelsey, USA

Rick leads BIA/Kelsey’s strategy consulting practice and serves as an advisor to an affiliated investment banking group BIA Capital Strategies. Rick works with media, adtech and martech companies to see and evaluate opportunities and strategies in the market to achieve corporate goals. He helps client with strategic planning, developing  partnership strategies, product planning, and achieving revenue growth and diversification. He helps marketers including brands and agencies with effective planning and use of digital media platforms. He also works on investment banking projects assisting buy-side and sell-side clients.

Rick co-cofounded SpectraRep in 2000, a technology company that specializes in emergency alert and warning solutions. Prior to joining BIA/Kelsey, Rick headed the National Association of Broadcaster’s Research and Information Group overseeing all research and information technology initiatives. Rick is an adjunct professor at George Washington University where he teaches classes in digital media entrepreneurship.

Rick earned his Ph.D. from Michigan State University, his M.S. from Syracuse University and his B.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Director of Research and Innovation, College of Culture and Creative Industries, University of Central Lancashire, UK

Professor Paul Egglestone is Director of Research and Innovation in the College of Culture and Creative Industries at the University of Central Lancashire. He holds the chair in Creative and Digital Technologies.  

A former independent television producer working for BBC, ITV and Sky in Regional and network programming, he established the University of Central Lancashire’s international research centre, the Media Innovation Studio, (www.mediainnovationstudio.org) in 2012. The Studio’s remit is to inhabit ‘liminal spaces’ between disciplines. It aims to explore, research and innovate within the digital ecosystem evolving around us.

Paul is a founder member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) Global Alliance for Media Innovation. He is co-founder of the Civic Drone Centre whose mission is to develop drone technologies for humanitarian aid, media and search and rescue operations.
 

Tow-Knight Fellow, Founder of www.haptic.al, USA

Deniz Ergürel is a technology journalist and founder of HAPTICAL. He brings stories, ideas and people around virtual reality, augmented reality and 360 video. Throughout his career Deniz has lived in Mexico, Brazil, USA. He speaks fluent English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Digital Content Manager, Artear, Grupo Clarín, Argentina

Marcos is a specialist in digital content management. He currently holds the possition of Digital Content Manager at Artear, the television media company for Grupo Clarin. He previously worked at Clarin.com, CNNenEspañol, ESPN, Business Group (Spain) and Grupo Ferre Rangel (Puerto Rico). He holds a BA and MA in Journalism and a Masters in Business Administration.

Chairman & CEO, Editorial Perfil, Argentina

Jorge Fontevecchia

Jorge Fontevecchia is one of Argentina’s most prominent news media publishers. He started his career launching small magazines in Paraguay and Uruguay in the 1970’s, before launching “La Semana”, the first magazine he published in Argentina and predecesor to his current company, Editorial Perfil. 

During Argentina’s military regime (1976-1983), La Semana’s circulation was banned 6 times, and it was shut down in 1982, before being reopened by the a Supreme Court order months later. He was kidnapped by the military regime and put in jail, but was finally freed after strong international pressure. He was later accused of being an English Spy shortly after the end of the Falklands War. He avoided prison by seeking asylum in the Venezuelan embassy and flying there in exile.

In 1988 he launched two news magazines in Brazil, Mía and Semanario and in 1989, La Semana became Noticias, the name it has today.

During the presidencies of Carlos Menem (1989-1999), his company suffered to bomb attacks (1992-1995) in its industrial plants, and the brutal killing of a Noticias photographer, José Luís Cabezas, in 1997. 

In 1994, he launched a new magazine in Brazil, Caras, and its success allowed him to launch in 1998 daily newspaper Perfil. The 2001 crisis forced him to shut down the newspaper and it was republished as a weekly in 2005 and continues until this day. 

Fontevecchia however keeps looking abroad for business. Editorial Perfil publishes magazines in China and Portugal and through licences, in Angola and Russia. He was secretary at the Binational Chamber of Commerce between Argentina and Russia, from 2003 to 2006, but he quit in protest to the killing of Russian journalist Anna Politovskaia.

Journalist and consultant, Former Director, Estado Group, Brazil

Ricardo Gandour is a Brazilian journalist and media consultant. He directed major newsrooms and media companies in Brazil, like CBN Radio Network, Grupo Estado (Estadão daily newspaper) and O Diário de S.Paulo. Gandour also worked for Infoglobo and Folha de S.Paulo. He is Master in Science of Communication at USP University and teaches Journalism at ESPM. Gandour is member of the board of Instituto Palavra Aberta (NGO dedicated to freedom of expression), Columbia Global Center Brazil and WAN-IFRA LatAm.

CEO, El Espectador, Cromos and Vea

Eduardo is currently CEO of two companies that publish three of the top editorial products in Colombia, the daily newspaper EL ESPECTADOR  and two bi weekly magazines CROMOS and VEA. Prior to that,  he was General Manager of EL TIEMPO, and had top executive positions at HUNTER DOUGLAS, NESTLE and J.WALTER THOMPSON. This experience in the triangle of marketing between consumer product companies, advertising agencies and media conglomerates has given Eduardo a broad and deep knowledge of the evolution of media consumption and its capacity to connect consumers and brands. Responsible for all platforms of his content generating  brands, he is facing the challenges of transition from traditional to digital platforms and adapting his companies to face the future, at the same time he makes the most of the present.

Eduardo is principle board member of INMA (International News media Association), ANDIARIOS (Colombian National Association of Newspapers) and ACIM (Colombian Association of Media Researchers).

CEO and Founder of García Media, USA

Dr Mario Garcia is CEO and Founder of Garcia Media, a global consulting firm. 

He is also the Senior Adviser for News Design/Adjunct Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, which he joined in 2013 as the Hearst Digital Media Professor in Residence.

He is known worldwide as one of the premiere media designers, having completed over  700 projects in 120 countries, including TheThe Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Paris Match (France) , South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), New Straits Times (Malaysia),  Aftenposten (Norway), The Philadelphia Inquirer, Die Zeit and Handelsblatt (Germany), all the McClatchy newspapers in the US, eight Postmedia newspapers in Canada, Goteborgs Posten( Sweden), Il Secolo XIX (Italy), The Citizen (South Africa). His current projects include Tagesspiegel (Berlin), Kurier (Vienna) and NOZ Digital group (Hamburg).

Currently, Dr. Garcia devotes most of his consulting and workshops to help organizations with transformation to a mobile-first approach, including training for how to write/edit/design for the smallest platform - that of the smartphone - where a large percentage of users get their information.

His mobile storytelling digital book, The Story, was published in late 2019 in a trilogy covering Transformation, Storytelling and Design.

Mario founded the Graphics & Design program at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, where he serves as a member of the Poynter Foundation. He has been involved with the Institute's EyeTrack studies since the 1980s, including the most recent EyeTrack for the Tablet in 2012.

His academic career includes full professor at both Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications and the University of South Florida's Department of Mass Communications. He is the author of 13 books, including his first digital publication, Storytelling in the Age of the iPad.

Mario has received over 300 SND Awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award. People Magazine selected Mario among the 100 Most Influential Hispanics. The University of Missouri awarded Mario its Medal of Honor in Journalism.

Managing Editor for Digital, The Washington Post, USA

As the Managing Editor for Digital at The Washington Post, Emilio Garcia-Ruiz drives innovation at one of the world’s greatest newsrooms. Digital video, virtual reality and drones are his current fascinations, working to combine the latest story-telling technology and platforms with The Post’s awe-inspiring journalism. When not looking for Unity developers or getting his folks flying lessons, he also oversees digital initiatives and operations, the 40-person video team, the photo, graphics and design departments and the multiplatform editing desk.

Executive Director, El Colombiano, Colombia

Martha is one of Colombia's most innovative news executives. 

She directed the redesign of the business newspaper, La República, as Strategy and Business Director, a project that later earned a Lápiz de Acero (Steel Pencil) Award. She subsequently led the renovation project at EL COLOMBIANO, as part of its 100th year anniversary, and created and directed the Strategy and Innovation Lab (ECOLAB), a position she has filled since then. In January of 2013 she was named Editor in Chief of EL COLOMBIANO, a multimedia brand with more than 108 years of history, always committed to social development.

She currently serves the board of INMA (International News Media Association) and its LATAM board, as past-president. She's part of the board of the Medellín Museum of Modern Art as well as on the board of the Secretos para Contar Foundation, which promotes literacy and education for rural families.

She has been recipient of the Fe en la Causa (Faith in the Cause) medal awarded by the Presidency of the Republic; the “José María Córdoba” Military Merit, awarded by the National Army of Colombia, and she and her team have earned four major INMA awards, a King of Spain, and several SND awards for excellence.

Interactive Editor, Associated Press, USA

Nathan Griffiths, Interactive Editor at the Associated Press, builds interactive data visualizations and news applications and is now focused on developing alternative digital formats for storytelling, including 3-D, 360 video and virtual reality. Prior to working for the AP, he worked for a decade in the technology industry. He has a Masters degree in Journalism from the University of Hong Kong.

Executive Director, NYC Media Lab, USA

Justin Hendrix

Justin Hendrix is Executive Director at NYC Media Lab. Hendrix connects companies seeking to advance digital media technologies with New York City’s universities to drive R&D and innovation. Launched by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, NYU and Columbia University, NYC Media Lab is a public-private partnership encompassing the universities of NYC and corporate members such as Hearst, ESPN, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Bloomberg, News Corp, NBCUniversal, Viacom and Verizon. The Lab's interests range across disciplines from data science to design to engineering, and its programs include seed R&D projects with member companies as well as The Combine, which encourages digital media startup formation and technology commercialization on the City’s campuses.

Previously Hendrix was Vice President, Business Development & Innovation for The Economist, where he directed prototyping and commercialization of new digital media business concepts. He is a regular writer and speaker on media & innovation. Hendrix holds a Bachelor of Arts from the College of William & Mary and a Master of Science in Technology Commercialization from the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin.

Executive Editor, The Huffington Post, USA

Liz Heron is the Executive Editor of The Huffington Post, a Pulitzer Prize-winning source of breaking news, video, entertainment and solutions-focused journalism, as well as a highly engaged platform for opinion and conversation. Liz has built a career leading innovation in digital and traditional media, with a keen eye for the forces shaping the overall media and tech landscape – from traditional to cutting edge, both US-based and international. Before joining HuffPost, Liz led Journalism Partnerships at Facebook, managing a team that collaborated with and advocated for news organizations and journalists, and was an editor at The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

Professor and Director, Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, USA

Jeff Jarvis is professor and director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of “Geeks Bearing Gifts: Imagining New Futures for News,” "Public Parts," "What Would Google Do?", and the ebook "Gutenberg the Geek." He is also cohost of the podcast "This Week in Google."

Jarvis was president of Advance.net, the online arm of Advance Publications; creator of Entertainment Weekly; TV critic of TV Guide and People; Sunday editor and associate publisher of the New York Daily News; a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner; and an editor on the Chicago Tribune. He blogs at Buzzmachine.com.

Executive Managing Director, Styria Content Creation, Austria

In addition to his role at styria content creation gmbh, Alexis is a Behavioural Designer / Partner at FehrAdvice and Partners in Vienna. He was previously managing director of Styria Digital One, Austria’s number one digital publisher regarding reach with a portfolio of 35 general interest, lifestyle and niche portals with premium content.

The author of books and articles on online advertising started his career as a business and finance journalist. He then soon realized the potential of video and co-founded an online TV platform in 2000. Alexis later became part of the editorial board of the Austrian business paper “WirtschaftsBlatt” and reorganized the digital content activities of Styria Media Group, one of Austria’s top media companies.

His passion is journalism and he loves the new possibilities digital news and advertising offer.    

Expert Advisor, WAN-IFRA & Senior Advisor, Schibsted, Sweden

Beginning in the mid-90s, Kalle was one of the key designers of the strategy and success of Aftonbladet’s digital business development. The strategy and its implementation have deeply influenced the Schibsted corporate strategy.
Driving Aftonbladet to be one of the first digital news media in the world to ask users to pay for digital content, Kalle was also instrumental in developing its mobile strategy. He has over 35 years in media and is Senior Advisor to Schibsted Sweden as well as WAN-IFRA. Kalle is also a Board Member of Svenska Dagbladet.

Professor of Professional Practice; Co-Director, Media, Economics and Entrepreneurship; Director, Future of Journalism at the Annenberg Innovation Lab, USA

Gabriel Kahn

Gabriel Kahn has worked as a newspaper correspondent and editor for two decades, including 10 years at The Wall Street Journal, where he served as Los Angeles bureau chief, deputy Hong Kong bureau chief and deputy Southern Europe bureau chief, based in Rome. He has reported from more than a dozen countries on three continents.

In 1998, Kahn launched Italy Daily, a joint venture of the International Herald Tribune and Corriere della Sera, based in Milan, Italy. He has covered the U.S. Congress for the Washington, D.C.,-based Roll Call, and served as an editor and writer at The Forward, in New York City.

His work has appeared in the American Prospect, The National Law Journal, Salon, The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and other publications. He has been a guest on the BBC World Service, CNN, CNBC, C-Span, as well as on numerous international news programs.

He joined USC Annenberg in the fall of 2010, where he jointly runs the Media, Economics and Entrepreneurship program. The goal of M{2e} is to bolster students’ understanding of economics and encourage innovation and experimentation with new ideas in communication and journalism. He also leads the Future of Journalism project at the Annenberg Innovation Lab.

In addition to his teaching and reporting work, Kahn studies the economic models of the news industry and consults with startups and established news companies on strategy. He currently serves on the advisory board of two startups, Worldcrunch and Coincident TV.

Senior Policy Advisor, The Internet Society, Switzerland

As a senior policy advisor in the department of Global Public Policy Development at the Internet Society, Konstantinos provides analysis and strategic advice in support of the Internet Society’s policy, advocacy and mission, including the promotion of the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world. 

Konstantinos has extensive experience in Internet policy and governance arrangements. He leads policy development and coordination on issues relating to the digital economy, including access and competition, intellectual property, technology trade, and Internet governance.  Over the past years, Konstantinos has held various leadership roles, including the chair of the Non-Commercial Users Constituency at ICANN and a member of the Special Trademark Issues team, which drafted the rights protection mechanisms for the new generic top-level domain names. 

Konstantinos joined the Internet Society after working as a senior lecturer at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK. He has a bachelor’s degree in law from the Aristotle’s University of Thessaloniki. He holds two masters degrees, respectively, in International and European law (Sheffield) and in Information Technology and Telecommunications law (Strathclyde). He also holds a doctorate and he is the author of the book “The Current State of Domain Name Regulation”. He is also an arbitrator for the Czech Arbitration Court.

Editor, Mobile Innovation Lab, Guardian News & Media

Sasha Koren is the editor of the Guardian US Mobile Innovation Lab, where she co-leads a multidisciplinary team within the Guardian's New York newsroom that is dedicated to finding new and better ways to deliver news and tell stories in mobile-specific formats. The lab was founded in the fall of 2015 with the purpose of testing and learning about how to best deliver news to readers with new patterns of consuming information.

Prior to joining The Guardian US, Sasha spent over a decade in digitally focused editing roles at The New York Times. Most recently she was a deputy editor of the interactive news team, where she built and led the social media and reader engagement teams, fostered innovations in crowdsourcing, and guided social media strategy in The Times's newsroom. Earlier she led digital innovation on The Times's features desks and on the Editorial department. She holds a B.A. degree in Literature & Society from Brown University.

Editor-in-Chief, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany

Wolfgang Krach, 54, is currently Editor-in-Chief of “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the largest selling national quality newspaper in Germany, based in Munich. Wolfgang studied philosophy, worked for several news agencies (AP, Reuters, dpa) and served as Munich correspondent for the regional daily “Donaukurier”. From 1993 to 1997, he was a political reporter at STERN magazine in Hamburg. Following this post, Mr. Krach was deputy bureau chief in Berlin of the news magazine DER SPIEGEL, after which he headed the national desk at DER SPIEGEL based in Hamburg. In 2003, he came to “Süddeutsche Zeitung” to serve as the paper's managing editor. In 2007, he was appointed to the role deputy editor-in-chief, since 2015 he has been editor-in-chief. As Editor-in-Chief he oversaw “Süddeutsche Zeitungs” investigation first of the Panama Papers – a cooperation with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting 2017, then the investigation of the Paradise Papers – also in cooperation with the ICIJ – that won a George Polk Award in 2018.

 

Executive Producer, Video, Refinery29, USA

Elisa is a Brooklyn-based video artist hacking pop culture. She is currently the Executive Producer of Video at Refinery29 and a Women in Technology Fellow at NYU School of Engineering. Her 2012 US Copyright Office testimony helped win crucial exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, allowing online video to flourish across social platforms. Her interview with BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti about the power of identity-based viral video is published in The Future of Now. She is a contributor to The Book of Jezebel and The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies. Her latest project is #TweetsGirlsGet, a twitter bot that responds to misogynistic hate tweet with feminist pop song lyrics.

Head of Schibsted Next Media, Sweden

Frida Kvarnström has been working within Schibsted Media Group for six years, in Sweden, Norway and Hungary. During this time in the group, she has been responsible for commercial product development on mobile platforms at VG, Blocket and Aftonbladet. Today she is Sales Director with focus on new ad-technology and how to increase revenue from B2B segments, with the help of geotargeting technology.

President, Lamb Consulting, USA

Peter Lamb

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Lamb is a Strategy Consultant, now living in Miami, Florida, and specialising in media companies. "The goal of my consulting practice is to utilise the sophisticated strategic marketing principles and techniques, learned while doing my MBA at Harvard Business School, meshing them with a hands-on sales approach, to generate new revenue streams for publications and websites. ROI is achieved by focusing on NEW-NEW revenue ... from customers that have never used our products before: print or online."

CEO, Local Media Association, USA

Nancy Lane is the dynamic leader of the Local Media Association, an organisation that supports nearly 3,000 newspapers, TV stations, digital sites, radio stations and R&D partners in North America. LMA’s mission is to reinvent business models for news.  

The association announced the creation of Accelerate Local last year and launched six different labs including the GNI Subs Lab, The Branded Content Project and the Digital Transformation Lab for Publishers of Color. In 2020, four new projects have been launched: COVID-19 local news fund (has raised $1.4 million for over 200 publishers), Oklahoma Media Center, a news collaborative in Chicago and The Fund for Local Journalism.

Lane has served as CEO since October 2000 and prior to that she held publisher and senior level positions with daily and weekly newspapers in Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Missouri. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Villanova University and also serves as the immediate past president on the VU Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Assistant Director-General Communication and Information, UNESCO

Frank La Rue is Assistant Director-General Communication and Information at UNESCO. Before, he was the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression at the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. Mr. La Rue is also co-founder of the Center for Legal Action for Human Rights (CALDH) and has been involved in the promotion of human rights for over 25 years. He is widely respected as one of the world's foremost human rights advocates, with particular expertise in political analysis; democratic development; and conflict management, negotiation, and resolution. A lawyer by training, Mr. La Rue has worked as a journalist, served in the government in his native Guatemala, and has frequently taught and written about human rights.

Founder & CEO, Wizeline, USA

Bismarck is the CEO of Wizeline, a business intelligence software company. Wizeline was created to help companies use data to build products that their customers use and love. Bismarck is also founder and chairman of Wize Services, a global product services company focused on supporting media companies with technology product development. Prior to Wizeline, he co-founded Ooyala, a video platform company that delivers video to over 200 million unique viewers, monthly. In 2014, Ooyala was sold to Telstra for 400 million USD. Prior to Ooyala, Bismarck was an early product manager at Google where he managed the growth of display and video advertising products. Businessweek named Bismarck one of the nation's top entrepreneurs, and in 2014, the Mexican Ministry of Exterior bestowed the Ohtli award upon him.

Bismarck has a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University.

Publishing Consultant FT Strategies, WAN-IFRA Supervisory Board Member London, UK

Lisa MacLeod was Head of Digital at Tiso Blackstar Group, South Africa’s largest English-language publisher, and owner of 8 newspapers, 15 websites, music, film and radio businesses across the continent.  Her role was to lead digital strategy and innovation, and manage Tiso Blackstar’s online properties with 6-million unique browsers monthly on titles such as TimesLIVE, SowetanLIVE and BusinessLIVE, as well as implement sustainable digital monetisation streams.

Lisa was previously General Manager of Digital for Media24’s 24.com in Cape Town, and prior to that spent 12 years in London at the Financial Times, helping to drive their print to digital integration. She served as Head of Operations for FT.com, widely thought to be the most successful paid website in the media industry, and FT Managing Editor, overseeing staffing, strategic planning and budgets for the FT globally

From 2018-2020, Lisa served as the Vice-President of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers and is currently a member of the Supervisory Board. She has been on the board of the World Editors Forum (WEF) for many years, and has taught and spoken at numerous international conferences and training events for WAN-IFRA , WEF and Women in News.

 

Independent Media Production Professional, USA

Matt MacVey

Matt MacVey is developing immersive journalism curriculum and workshops at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Matt has worked with interactive storytelling in the exhibitions department at AMNH and worked on a report about VR for the NYC Media Lab.

Vice President, Advertising Products and Strategy, Forbes Media, USA

Ann Marinovich is the Vice President, Advertising Products and Strategy of Forbes Media.  She is responsible for leading the company’s digital, mobile and print advertising products and strategy across Forbes’ integrated product line. 
 
Marinovich joined Forbes in 2003 as a sales assistant in the San Francisco office.  Since then she has worked in their New York, Los Angeles and Chicago offices in a variety of sales and strategy positions.  Most recently she was the Vice President Sales of the Central Region, where she oversaw the advertising sales efforts in the Midwest.
 
Marinovich currently lives in New York City.  She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelors of Arts in Anthropology.

Journalist at El Diario de Juarez, Mexico

Gabriela Minjares is an investigative journalist at El Diario de Juarez in northern Mexico. A veteran of 20 years at the newspaper, Gabriela specializes in covering issues related to corruption, urban affairs and public safety.

As Ciudad Juárez became the most dangerous city in the world in the period between 2009 and 2012, Gabriela was one of the journalists most involved in covering the wave of violence unleashed by drug cartels. She has covered in depth the impact the violence had in the city and its victims and is co-author of the book “Ciudad Juárez: A Border in Crisis”.

In response to the toll that violence also took on local journalists, Gabriela was a co-founder of the Juarez Journalists Network, a not-for-profit organization started in 2011 to promote solidarity, peer support and training among journalists. She currently chairs the Network.
She has a bachelor’s degree in Communications from the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua and a Master’s degree in Investigative Journalism from Florida International University.

Director of Global News Partnerships, Facebook, USA

Andy, Mitchell

Andy Mitchell is Director of Global News Partnerships for Facebook based in the NY office. He joined Facebook in October 2010. In his role, Mitchell oversees the news and publishing vertical for Facebook globally.  Currently Mitchell’s working on Facebook’s evolving partnerships with article and video publishers with a focus on migrating content to Facebook with the business model to support it.

Since joining Facebook, Mitchell’s role has included working on FB Platform, specifically social plugins (Like, Comments, Share) and more traditional partnerships with media organizations including broadcast Partnerships with NBC for the London Olympics Games; CNN for a cross platform global partnership for the US general election; and a debate with NBC News featuring the Republican nominees in New Hampshire.

In addition to broadcast Partnerships, Mitchell’s role is to work with publishers to leverage the Facebook Platform and News Feed to maximize engagement, referrals and distribution. This includes traditional companies like CNN, NBC News and The New York Times as well as social publishers including Buzzfeed, Vice and The Huffington Post. Immediately prior to joining Facebook, Mitchell served as Vice President of Business Development for The Daily Beast. He was responsible for marketing and strategic communications, mobile, SEO, social media strategy, content distribution partnerships.  

Mitchell had a 15-year tenure at CNN Worldwide in a variety of roles. His last position was vice president of digital marketing and development and a key member of the CNN Digital management team. Based in New York, Mitchell was directly responsible for trade and consumer marketing of CNN’s digital assets, including the No. 1 news and information site, CNN.com, and the company’s growth into mobile and other digital platforms. Additionally, Mitchell was responsible for developing partnerships to support multi-platform content distribution across CNN’s networks.

Deputy Editor in Chief, The Wall Street Journal, USA

Matt Murray

Matt Murray is Deputy Editor in Chief of The Wall Street Journal. Before his appointment as Deputy Editor in Chief, he had served as deputy managing editor, U.S., in which he oversaw national and corporate news, and as deputy managing editor, foreign, in which he oversaw foreign and finance news. He joined Dow Jones & Company in April 1994 and has held a range of reporting and editing positions. Mr. Murray is the author of “The Father and the Son,” a memoir about his father’s entrance into a monaster, and the writer of “Strong of Heart,” a memoir about former New York City fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen’s experiences during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Born in Washington, D.C., Mr. Murray received both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

Associate Editor. Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), USA

Daniel O'Maley, Ph.D., is the Associate Editor at the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA). In this capacity he conducts research on changes in the global media environment, curates CIMA's blog, and manages the organization's social media presence. His policy portfolio includes Internet policy, Internet governance, and the implications of new digital technologies on media systems worldwide.

Publisher & CEO, El Nacional, Venezuela

Miguel Henrique is the President and CEO of El Nacional, one of Venezuela's last standing critical media voices to the current regime. Since 2015, runs his newspaper in exile from Madrid. Venezuela's government is pursuing him for several politically motivated lawsuits and has publically threatened to jail him in case he returns to his country.

Miguel Henrique Otero was born in 1947 and holds a Mathematics degree from the Central University of Venezuela. After doing a postgraduate degree in Business Administration, in the university, he traveled to England where he studied Economics at Churchill College, Cambridge University. On his return to the country, he began the extensive activity, both in the private and public sectors, which has continued until today.

In what regards daily ​​El Nacional, Otero has been Managing Director of the newspaper, CEO and Chairman of the Board. He has also been vice president of the Bloque de Prensa, the main press association in Venezuela. He has been author and promoter of successive innovations: creation of sections and media outlets, who have always had the novelty category. In Venezuela he's recognized as the pioneer of the professional use of new technologies both in the journalism profession and in the management of media companies. 

His experience and wide knowledge of institutions have been applied not only in his national daily, but also in business schools (IESA), not-for-profit organizations (Red Cross of Venezuela, Artisan Foundation Colonia Tovar ), human rights organizations (SIP/IAPA), cultural organizations (Ateneo de Caracas), international business associations (he's former President of Grupo de Diarios America, member of the Board of the Inter American Press Association and of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, WAN-IFRA).

Editor-in-Chief, The Philippine Star, Philippines

Ana Marie Pamintuan is the editor-in-chief of The Philippine Star, a Manila-based English daily broadsheet with the largest print circulation nationwide. Ms. Pamintuan also writes a column three times a week in the main opinion section of the newspaper. Her columns tackle a wide range of issues.

Ms. Pamintuan has been with The Star since it was launched in 1986. She started as a reporter, briefly covering the judiciary before covering the presidency of Corazon Aquino. In 1992 she joined the desk as news editor. She was promoted to associate editor, and then to managing editor before being named executive editor in 2002. She has served in her current post since Jan. 16, 2012.

She received the “Print Journalist of the Year” award in 2012 from the Rotary Club of Manila. The club, the oldest of its kind in Asia, has been handing out the award since 1966.

Ms. Pamintuan finished AB Journalism with honors at the University of the Philippines, where the College of Mass Communications picked her as Outstanding Alumna for Journalism during UP’s centennial celebration in 2008.

On April 10, 2015, she received an award as an outstanding native of Pangasinan, the province of her paternal grandmother, on its 435th founding anniversary. The Asna award (asna means salt, referring to “salt of the Earth”) recognized her for journalism.

Ms. Pamintuan has covered various beats from security, local government and national politics. She was a Jefferson Fellow and Senior Journalism Fellow at the East West Center in Hawaii, and has participated in several other journalism fellowships in the United States. She has also been a speaker at various forums in the Philippines and overseas.

In March 2011, she was the lone participant from the Philippines invited to the first International Conference of WomenMedia Leaders, organized in Washington by the International Women’s Media Foundation together with George Washington University to discuss gender equity in media around the world.

Partnership Strategist, Newsela, USA

Mark Pan is Newsela’s Partnership Strategist, focused on developing and scaling partnerships that transform the way students develop nonfiction fluency and critical thinking skills: through the news.

Launched in June 2013, Newsela strives toward its mission of unlocking the written word for everyone by publishing high-interest news articles daily at five levels of complexity for grades 2-12 using Newsela’s proprietary, rapid text-leveling process. News articles are adapted from partners such as AP, Washington Post, and The Guardian. Now, the news is becoming an integral piece to students and teachers across the country— 75% of all schools in the U.S. use Newsela.

Prior to Newsela, Pan was an early employee at Coursera, leading their Partnerships team in new revenue generation and partner satisfaction.

His interest for scaling education through technology stems from his experience teaching ESL in Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Director, El Universo, Ecuador

Carlos Pérez Barriga, 51, has been Director of Daily El Universo since 2003. Previously he was newsroom manager and head of the Art Department of the newspaper. 

Executive Vice-President of Product & Operations (TV, Print, Digital, Radio), RBS Group, Brazil

Andiara Petterle is an entrepreneur and executive of the digital market since 1998. Currently, she is senior vice-president of Product Development and Operations at Grupo RBS. Previously she was vice president Newspapers and Digital Media for the same group. Before joining RBS, Petterle was the Executive Director of Strategy and Business Development at e.Bricks, RBS’s investment company focused on the digital industry. At e.Bricks, she acted as an advisor to several technology, e-commerce and media companies. She founded Grupo Bolsa de Mulher, one of the largest women's digital media companies in Latin America, and was CEO of Predicta and other digital companies in the country. Petterle has a bachelor and a master’s degree in Social Communications from PUC-RJ, was an invited researcher at Brown University, and has participated in business training programs at Harvard Business School and Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

CEO, WAN-IFRA, France

Peyrègne took up duties as Chief Executive Officer of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) on 1 October 2012. Prior to joining WAN-IFRA, since the end of 2008 he worked in the office of the French minister of Culture and Communication where he was responsible for newspapers and new media as well as the “états généraux de la presse écrite,” the French government’s response to the economic difficulties facing the newspaper industry. From 2004 to 2008 he was head of development at Edipresse Publications SA in Lausanne, with responsibility for reader studies and marketing research.

Publisher, De Correspondent, The Netherlands

Ernst-Jan Pfauth is the former Editor-in-Chief of Internet at NRC Media, as well as an acclaimed technology author and columnist. In 2008, he co-founded The Next Web blog, which is now amongst the 10 most-visited blogs in the world. At De Correspondent, he serves as publisher, fostering the expansion of the platform.

Founder of explain.co.za, South Africa

Verashni Pillay is a South African journalist who is passionate about digital and the future of journalism. She is the founder of explain.co.za, a WhatsApp driven portal aimed at making the news more accessible to neglected audiences. She was previously the Head of Digital at talk radio station, POWER 98.7, editor-in-chief of the Mail & Guardian and inaugural editor-in-chief of HuffPost South Africa. Under her helm, all site's traffic consistently grew, as did the M&G print circulation – despite a depressed climate. She cut her teeth in digital journalism with Media24 for several years before joining the M&G digital team in 2009 as a reporter. She has also worked as a media consultant and trainer in various newsrooms, specialising in digital journalism, social media and convergence. Verashni is a recipient of the CNN African Journalism Award, several Standard Bank Sikuvile Awards and an Open Society Foundation journalism fellowship. She was awarded a Mandela Washington Fellowship in 2018 and is a council member of the South African National Editors Forum. 

Editor in Chief HuffPost

Lydia Polgreen

Lydia Polgreen is pioneering the globe and representing the newsroom in a company-wide initiative to engage readers in languages other than English. Previously, Ms. Polgreen was Deputy International Editor, the South Africa bureau chief, a correspondent for the New Delhi bureau and chief of the West Africa bureau. Before that, Ms. Polgreen was a metro reporter for The Times, beginning in 2002. In April 2016, she became Editorial Director & Associate Masthead Editor for the NYT Global and is architecting the company's global expansion strategy.

Ms. Polgreen was a staff writer for the Orlando Sentinel from February to June of 2002. From July 2000 to January 2002 she was a staff writer for the Albany Times Union, covering city hall, police investigations and other local issues. She began her career as assistant editor and business manager for The Washington (D.C.) Monthly from August 1998 to August 1999.

She received her B.A. in liberal arts from St. John's College in 1997. In 2000 she graduated, with honors, from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism with her M.S. in journalism.

Ms. Polgreen was a 2006 recipient of the George Polk Award for foreign reporting, in recognition of her travels deep into the war-torn western regions of Sudan to report on the carnage in Darfur. She received the 2008 Livingston Award for international reporting, for her series, "The Spoils", a riveting account of how mineral wealth has brought misery and exploitation to much of Africa. In 2007, she was honored as a young global leader by The World Economic Forum.

Ms. Polgreen currently resides in New York.

Managing Director, El Tiempo, Colombia

Roberto is one of the most respected journalists and media executives in Colombia. He studied law at the University of the Andes and he's been working for thirty-five year career in journalism. He started in 1979 as editor of 'Alternativa' magazine, he was a reporter for 'El Heraldo' de Barranquilla and editor-in-chief of daily 'Diario del Caribe' in the same city; he was reporter and political editor of El Tiempo, director of 'Noticiero TV Hoy" and "Viva FM" of Caracol Radio, director and columnist at Semana weekly magazine, editor and columnist of 'Cambio' magazine and director of the Mexico edition of that same publication for three years. In 2003 he served as General Editor of El Tiempo, where he is now the Managing Director . He has won several journalism awards amongst which the Simon Bolivar and CPB in Colombia, and the Ortega y Gasset prize, awarded by the daily El Pais of Spain.

Advocacy Director, Committee to Protect Journalists, USA

Courtney C. Radsch, PhD, is a free expression advocate who works at the nexus of media, activism and technology, with a particular interest in the Middle East. Dr. Radsch has spent her career developing a 360-degree perspective on how journalism and human rights can empower citizens through her work as a journalist, an academic, an international civil servant, and program manager. As Advocacy Director at the Committee to Protect Journalists she frequently speaks about these issues in the media and at events such as the Internet Governance Forum. She is editor of UNESCO’s flagship publication "World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development" and contributed to the conceptualization of the “internet universality” framework. Dr. Radsch started her career in journalism at the Daily Star in Lebanon, followed by a position with The New York Times, and then Al Arabiya in Dubai,

Dr. Radsch holds a Ph.D. in international relations from American University, a master's of science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a bachelor's degree with highest honors in mass communication from the University of California, Berkeley. She blogs at Arab Media and the Huffington Post, and has written for a range of publications. She is also the author of several book chapters and monographs. Follow her on Twitter @courtneyr

Group Editor-in-Chief, Independent News and Media (INM), Ireland

Stephen Rae is Group Editor-in-Chief of Independent News and Media (INM), Ireland’s largest media group. INM is the market leader in online news and in the daily, Sunday and regional newspaper sectors.

Stephen has led the group’s online transition, building a seven-day Platform Neutral newsroom, making Independent.ie the largest and fastest growing news source in Ireland. He designed the central editorial hub which produces journalism for all of the group’s news, sport and entertainment platforms – both online and print. Previously, Stephen was editor of the Irish Independent newspaper and before that edited the Evening Herald. Stephen is a qualified barrister-at-law and criminologist.

President, Moat, USA

Aniq Rahman is president of Moat, an analytics and intelligence company focused on digital advertising. Moat develops technologies to help brand advertisers and publishers evaluate and optimize digital advertising by measuring attention. Prior to Moat, Rahman was CEO of Instinctiv (acquired by SoundCloud), a venture-backed technology company that produced desktop and mobile multimedia software. Rahman actively advises and invests in technology companies, and is a venture partner at Vast Ventures. Rahman was an early part of the team at Behance (acquired by Adobe). In 2012, Rahman was named to Business Insider's "25 Under 25 in NY."

Journalist, commentator, consultant

Marcelo Rech is a journalist, president of the Brazilian Newspaper Association (ANJ), columnist, commentator and consultant.

He was Editorial and Institutional Vice President of Grupo RBS, a multimedia group with operations in southern Brazil. As a reporter, he worked in investigative reports and in war coverages, such as the wars in the Gulf and the Balkans and conflicts in Africa and Latin America.

For about 15 years he was managing editor of RBS newspapers and later director of journalism at RBS Group.

Marcelo was president of the World Editors Forum (WEF) between 2015 and 2017. He is currently a member of the executive committee of the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-Ifra) and of different boards and councils. Graduated in journalism, he attended the Executive Development Program at Fundação Dom Cabral and has specialization courses at the Media Management Center, linked to Kellogg, and media strategy at Harvard Business School.

Journalism Ethics Expert, Colombia

Journalist and expert in journalism ethics, professor at the University of the Andes and lecturer in social communication. He has been a columnist for El Tiempo, El Espectador, El Colombiano and El Heraldo.

He received the national prize from Círculo de Periodistas de Bogotá in the category of press in 1993 and the National Prize of Journalism Simon Bolivar in 1985 and 1986. He also received the San Gabriel award given by the Colombian Catholic Church in 1994, the Germán Arciniegas award from Editorial Planeta in 1995 and the Latin American journalistic ethics Award granted by the Latin American Journalism Center -CELAP-, sponsored by the Florida International University, in 1997. He is the author of 22 books. In 2014 he received the recognition for journalistic excellence in the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Journalism Award.

General Manager, Parque Viva, Costa Rica

During the end of December 2015, Mariela Rodriguez was appointed as the General Manager of Parque Viva, a venue for concerts, exhibitions, conferences and sport events in which Grupo Nación invested $44 million in Costa Rica.

This investment is part of the revenue streams diversification that the media group’s shareholders initiated a few years ago. The venue was inaugurated mid-2015 and Rodriguez is responsible for developing Parque Viva and building useful synergies with the mother media company. Before taking over this new challenge, she was the Commercial Director of Grupo Nación for 10 years.

Chief Digital Officer, El Tiempo, Colombia

Daniel holds an executive MBA, specialized in marketing, and has over 15 years experience in management positions in marketing and sales. He counts with extensive experience in brand positioning, development and new products launching, lifecycle product management, luxury and mass marketing strategies, pricing, business plans, trademarketing, retail, business alliances and new business development, as well as in design and implementation of strategies for local and regional marketing. His background also covers digital and mobile business. He's a teacher for undergraduate and graduate university students.

At El Tiempo, he's responsible for the business strategy's definition for the portals Eltiempo.com; Portafolio.co; Motor.com.co; futbolred.com among other premium networks with more than 22 million unique users. He's also in charge of the business unit P&L, usability and performance, brands in the digital ecosystem, audience management, social media strategy, monetization and of new products development.

Director of the Program on Independent Journalism, Open Society Foundations, UK/Colombia

Maria Teresa Ronderos is the Director of the Program on Independent Journalism at the Open Society Foundations in London. The program aims to support a free and safe environment for journalism to flourish, while seeking to strengthen investigative reporting, innovative and quality information collected under difficult conditions, and knowledge sharing in the field.

Maria Teresa Ronderos took up her position at the PIJ in August 2015, leaving behind Semana, Colombia’s leading news magazine, where she served in a range of senior editorial roles. Together with the Ideas for Peace Foundation, she created and was editor in chief at VerdadAbierta.com, a website that has covered armed conflict in Colombia since 2008. In 2014, Maria Teresa released her highly acclaimed book, 'Guerras Recicladas', a history of the paramilitary forces in Colombia.

Maria Teresa is a member of the directive council of the García Márquez Iberoamerican Foundation for New Journalism and has been a board member of the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Flip, Colombia’s Foundation for Freedom of the Press, where, as chair she worked to protect the lives of journalists in danger.

An experienced teacher, Maria Teresa has trained professional journalists from across Latin America and led workshops, online courses, and seminars on investigative journalism, politics, and social and economic issues. On account of her book “Guerras Recicladas” in 2014, Ronderos won the highest national award, Simon Bolivar National Award, “Best Journalist of the Year”. Among other awards, Ronderos has also received the King of Spain Iberoamerican Award in Madrid and the Maria Moors Cabot Award from Columbia University in New York.

President, Innovation Media Consulting Group, UK

As a Partner at Innovation, Juan Senor has directed projects all over the world helping news operations to re-invent their products and stay relevant with shifting audiences. He has worked and advised hundreds of media companies on every continent. He serves on the Advisory Board of several media companies around the world. 

He has been listed as one of 'The World's Leading Innovators' in Journalism and Media' by Journalism UK Site.

Mr Señor is a highly-sought commentator on the media industry, speaking at global forums and quoted frequently in leading publications such as The Economist and The Financial Times. 

He is also the co-editor of two annuals books; Innovation in NewsMedia and Innovation in MagazineMedia, written on behalf of WAN-IFRA and the FIPP respectively.

He is a former journalist and presenter for PBS's NewsHour, EBN-Wall Street Journal TV, CNBC Europe. And he served as London correspondent of International Herald Tribune Television. His work has been nominated for an Emmy Award and his television programme, Media Report, was voted by viewers as Europe’s Best Business Programme. He continues to work as a live events and television host and presenter globally.

Director, Global Advisory - WAN-IFRA, Germany

Ben is a leading expert on digital media, and at WAN-IFRA he has the task of providing independent advice on digital strategy and organisational change. He will also lead the various WAN-IFRA initiatives to support the media industry in its transformation.

Previously, he was Shaw Media's Chief Digital Officer, and focused in driving digital revenue and audience for their digital products in the United States. Shaw was also the company’s CTO and previously IT Director. He oversaw the alignment of all technologies to Shaw’s audience and revenue growth strategies. He was also actively involved in optimizing Shaw Media's over 100 print and digital publication products and workflows. He is a licensed Apple iOS Developer and an Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist.

Virtual Reality Evangelist, NextVR, USA

Helen Situ

Helen Situ is the Virtual Reality Evangelist at NextVR, the leader in live virtual reality entertainment. Helen is driven by passion to connect the world through VR shared experiences. Helen believes that virtual reality is the ultimate empathy machine, and Virtual Reality will completely change how we explore, experience, and share. She holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and she was hired as the 4th employee at NextVR. Helen is a reoccurring judge with the annual innovation contest: Big Ideas at Berkeley. In early 2016, Helen launched SH//FT, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating opportunities for underrepresented groups in emerging technology. Follow Helen on Twitter and Medium @HelenSitu.

Vice President of Advertising in the Americas, Financial Times, USA

Brendan Spain

Previously, Spain was Account Director for Financial Markets, responsible for US investment banking clients including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Citigroup across print and digital FT properties.

Spain has played a vital role at the FT for over seven years. As an original member of the FT's "Digital Development Group", he has worked extensively with the FT's key clients in developing marketing solutions that leverage audience, platforms, creative executions, and metrics.

In March 2011 Spain moved to London to become senior account manager, educating the FT’s highest revenue client line in their digital proposition, niche financial offerings (FT Trading Room, FTfm, Alphaville), and tablet and mobile innovations.

In October 2012, Spain was appointed Digital Development Manager for financial products in London. His position focused on product development and sales strategy across all of FT’s digital Financial Publishing products.

Aside from geeking out in spirited digital conversations and being close enough to the business to understand the particular challenges and problems faced by organizations attempting to navigate the evolving digital landscape.

Executive Chairman, Independent Media, and Founder & Chairman, Sekunjalo Group, South Africa

Dr. Iqbal Survé

President Nelson Mandela in 1997 made an impassioned plea for black professionals to enter the mainstream economy of South Africa to bring about meaningful transformation of the social and economic landscape in order to redress the economic legacy of apartheid. This resulted in Dr. Survé leaving his first love medicine, and founding the Sekunjalo Group, which is today wholly owned by the Survé family. Today Sekunjalo is one of Africa’s most successful Investment Holding Groups with a portfolio of 176 investments and a net asset value exceeding $3.5 billion.

Sekunjalo’s investment portfolio includes Oil and Gas, Food, Fishing, Aquaculture, Power, Resources, Transport and Mobility, Telecoms, Civil Security and Defense, Media, Technology, Bio-technology, Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals and Asset Management. Sekunjalo pioneers many social impact investment initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The story of Africa’s rising is an important narrative that The Survé family and Sekunjalo have committed to by investing in media on the African continent. In South Africa, Sekunjalo has acquired Independent Media (20 major titles, more than 6 million daily print readers and 3 million online viewers).

Two important initiatives which the Survé family and Sekunjalo has funded and committed to are: the launch of The African Independent (AI), the first continent wide print newspaper (distributed to 40 countries in Africa) which is also accompanied by the online website

The second major initiative is the launch of The African News Agency (ANA) to provide the first news and content syndication service by Africans for an African and global audience. ANA’s success is unprecedented in African media in that it recently placed a minority shareholding of 10% with international investors at a company valuation of a billion dollars (six months after its launch).

Dr. Iqbal Survé is a medical doctor born and educated in South Africa. He was affectionately known as the “Struggle Doctor” because of his provision of medical care towards victims of apartheid brutality including those imprisoned on the infamous Robben Island such as Nelson Mandela on his release from Robben Island in February 1990.

Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Global Alliance for Media Innovation (GAMI)

Rolf Dyrnes Svendsen is Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Global Alliance for Media Innovation (GAMI) founded in January 2015 by WAN-IFRA, the World Association of Newspaper and News Publishers. He is Editor of Adresseavisen, Norway’s fifth largest news- and advertising mediahouse. With ten additonal local newspapers situated in the mid-Norway, Adresseavisen is by far the largest compamy and the digital powerhouse of Polaris Media Group. Rolf is also Editor/director at the Polaris Media Lab. The Medialab, located in Trondheim, is supporting more than 30 newspapers in the Polaris Media Group, providing software development and maintainence for editorial and commercial purposes. The Medialab works closely with Schibsted’s digital development units with co-location of development teams at Schibsted Tech Polska’s Krakow operations. Rolf is also Chairman of the board of NxtMedia since 2011. Nxtmedia is an innovation cluster for the media industry in Middle Norway including newspapers, broadcast and web industry, universities and media software industry aiming to promote innovation and future media technology. Leading companies member of NxtMedia include Polaris Media, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, MKTMedia in swedish Stampen Group, Norwegian Media Businesses’ Association (MBL) and New Media Network.

Senior Vice President, Teads Latin America, USA

Eric Tourtel has more than 15 years of industry experience in a variety of sectors, bringing expertise in international sales, operations and business strategy to his current role as Managing Director of Teads in Latin America. Teads, previously known as Ebuzzing, is a leading global technology company on a mission to reinvent video advertising. Based in Miami, Eric joined Ebuzzing in 2013 as Vice President of International Business, prior to the company’s rebranding and merger in 2014.

Editorial Director, Efecto Cocuyo, Venezuela

Laura Weffer is the editorial director of Efecto Cocuyo, a transmedia platform, which strives to provide a space for freedom of expression and independent journalism in Venezuela. A reporter with experience in covering politics, health and corruption, she has been honored with several national and international awards among them a special mention in the Maria Moors Cabot Award and in two times IPYS Investigative Journalism Award. As part of a team, she also received in 2014 the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Journalism Award. She lives in Caracas.

Editor-in-Chief, upday, Poland

Michał started his professional career in media with Axel Springer in 2006 and he had almost 9 years tenure in a variety of roles. Michał worked as sport journalist, sport section manager, Managing Editor of biggest Polish daily newspaper Fakt and Fakt.pl Editor in Chief.

In March 2015 he moved to Germany where during next six months in cooperation with international team he was involved in launch of upday, the news aggregator, recently created by Axel Springer in partnership with Samsung. Currently he is Editor in Chief of upday in Poland and he heads editorial team of six people.

Michał holds a Masters’ degree in political science from University of Warsaw. He graduated Axel Springer Top Talent management program developing young executives with leadership potential.

World News Media Congress

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