Marcia Parker is vice president, philanthropic partnerships at the New York Times. Prior to joining the Times in 2022, she was chief operating officer of Calmatters, a nonprofit journalism organization covering California politics, policies and personalities. More previously, she was executive director of content and audience engagement for Penton’s Technology news portfolio. She also served as editorial programming and audience development director at State.com, a global opinion platform, and was West Coast editorial director of Patch.com, AOL’s venture into hyperlocal journalism.

Kinsey Wilson is an executive with Automattic Inc., which produces the WordPress web publishing platform. He developed and oversees Newspack, a grant-funded technology initiative for small and medium-sized news organizations that simplifies publishing and drives audience and revenue. Prior to joining Automattic, Wilson held dual masthead titles at The New York Times, where he led a vast team responsible for guiding the company’s digital strategy and creating products. Wilson was previously editor-in-chief of usatoday.com and executive editor of USA TODAY.

Ron Smith is an instructor of practice in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Marquette University’s Diederich College of Communication and the editor/program director for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. The nonprofit service provides evidenced-based journalism coverage of Milwaukee’s communities of color and is staffed by professionals, student-journalists and community residents. Before his current role, Ron served as the managing editor for news at USA TODAY.

Theriault has been a senior executive in local, state, and national public media organizations for nearly four decades. Until May 2016, Theriault was senior vice president, journalism and radio for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, where he led initiatives to encourage, fund and build stronger local, regional and national public media journalism through collaborations and partnerships.

John Adams is the executive director and editor-in-chief of Montana Free Press, which he launched in 2016. He started his newspaper career as the city government reporter for the Daily Jefferson County Union in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, where he covered the City Hall, police, fire and local courthouse beats. In 2005 he joined the staff of the Missoula Independent in Missoula, Montana, where he worked as a staff reporter covering a wide range of issues including the environment, state politics and local politics. In 2007, the Great Falls Tribune recruited Adams to head its statehouse news bureau in Helena. For the next seven years, John covered state government and politics as the capital bureau chief.

Valeria Fernández is the managing editor of palabra., a multimedia platform that aims to provide an accurate and honest representation of the Latino community by publishing stories from freelance journalists who are members of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ). She is the founder of Altavoz Lab, a mentorship project to strengthen reporters at community outlets to serve Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and other communities of color. Fernández was a professor of journalism at Arizona State University and received a Nieman Visiting Fellowship at Harvard to develop the podcast Comadres al Aire.

Lucas Grindley is the executive director of Next City, which leverages solutions-based journalism to spread workable ideas from one city to the next with the vision of reimagining cities as places of economic, environmental and racial justice. Prior to joining Next City in 2018, Grindley spent several years at Pride Media, where he became president after serving as editor in chief of The Advocate magazine and being twiced named LGBTQ journalist of the year by NLGJA. He previously covered politics and policymaking at National Journal.

Mark Horvit is an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where he teaches investigative reporting and is director of the State Government Reporting Program. He previously served as executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, where he conducted training in investigative reporting and data journalism throughout the world. Horvit worked as a reporter and editor for 20 years before joining IRE. He serves on the boards of the National Freedom of Information Coalition and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.

Kyra Kyles is a multi-platform senior-level media executive, award-winning writer and public speaker on issues of diversity and representation. Prior to joining YR Media as CEO, Kyra worked in philanthropy at Field Foundation where she oversaw the organization’s inaugural Media & Storytelling portfolio, granting funds to journalism and filmmaking organizations engaged in fact-based storytelling with a lens on racial equity. Kyra joined Field following a position as EBONY editor-in-chief and senior vice president, head of digital editorial.

Wong is a member of the Management Group at PA Consulting Group, a global consulting, technology and innovation firm. She has over 20 years’ experience in planning, developing and managing complex initiatives in the financial services, healthcare, consumer goods and media sectors. She uses cross-industry insights to drive business and operating model innovation. She has a unique perspective on these industries having worked in North America, Australia, China, Thailand, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Germany and the UK.

Carla Minet is the executive director and editor at the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI). She’s done investigative work mostly on political campaigns, corruption, environmental issues and government affairs. For the past 20 years, Minet has worked as a reporter, editor and producer for radio, TV, print and online in Puerto Rico. At CPI, she has led teams that have won the IRE Philip Meyer Award for Precision Journalism, the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism at Harvard, the Aronson Award at CUNY, and the Izzy Award for Conscience Journalism at Ithaca College, among others. She is a member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and board member at the News Leaders Association (NLA).

Graciela Mochkofsky is dean of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. At the Newmark J-School, Graciela launched the nation’s first bilingual master’s journalism program, oversaw a groundbreaking project that in four years helped infuse nearly $50 million of city funds into NYC community media and, in her first year as Dean, secured a $10 million gift from Craig Newmark Philanthropies and launched a fundraising campaign designed to make the school tuition-free. A native of Argentina, Graciela is also an active journalist. She is currently a contributing writer for The New Yorker and has worked as a political correspondent with La Nación in Argentina and as a columnist and blogger for El País in Spain. She is the author of seven books of nonfiction.

Laura Frank is the Executive Director of COLab, the Colorado news collaborative. She pioneered collaborative journalism in Colorado as the founder of I-News, the nonprofit investigative news organization that merged with Rocky Mountain Public Media in 2013, the first such merger in the nation. She led the journalism team there for seven years, and is now leading 100-plus newsrooms in collaborative reporting through the Colorado News Collaborative.

Brant Houston is a co-founder of the Institute for Nonprofit News, which began with more than 20 member organizations in 2009, and he served as INN’s interim executive director in INN’s first year. He also has been active for the last 11 years in supporting many INN member organizations as they start up, providing organizational, fundraising and editorial advice. Houston is a professor and Knight Chair of Investigative Reporting at the College of Media at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he oversees, CU-CitizenAccess.org, an award-winning newsroom.

Robert J. Rosenthal is one of the co-founders and former board member of INN. He is now on the board of the Center for Investigative Reporting/Reveal and was CIR’s executive director from 2008 until 2017, during which time he expanded its staff from 7 to 70 . CIR/Reveal is widely recognized for the quality and credibility of its journalism and its constant innovation around storytelling and distribution. Rosenthal spent the bulk of his nearly 50-year career in journalism at The Philadelphia Inquirer, starting as a reporter, and a foreign correspondent and becoming its executive editor in 1998.