Lorraine Ali

Lorraine Ali is television critic of the Los Angeles Times. Previously, she was a senior writer for the Calendar section where she covered culture at large, entertainment and American Muslim issues. Ali is an award-winning journalist and Los Angeles native who has written in publications ranging from the New York Times to Rolling Stone and GQ. She was formerly The Times’ music editor and before that, a senior writer and music critic with Newsweek magazine.

Cristi Hegranes

Cristi founded Global Press 17 years ago to change the face of international journalism. Today, she leads the business side of Global Press and serves as the publisher of Global Press Journal, their award-winning, multi-lingual news publication. She is the author of the forthcoming book (Forbes Books 2023) Byline: How Local Journalists Can Improve the Global News Industry and Change the World. Her greatest passion is creating world-class employment for women across the globe.

Yukari Kane

Yukari Iwatani Kane is a founder and executive director of Prison Journalism Project. She is an author, educator and veteran journalist with 20 years of experience. She was a staff writer and foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, and her book Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs (Harpers Business) was a best-seller, translated into seven languages. Yukari has taught journalism fundamentals, investigative reporting and the Medill Justice Project at Northwestern University and was previously a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She was a member of Institute for Nonprofit News’ Emerging Leaders Council and is a 2021-2022 Reynolds Journalism Institute fellow

Akoto Ofori-Atta

Akoto Ofori-Atta is Co-founder and Executive Editor of Capital B. Most recently, she was Managing Editor at The Trace, where she was responsible for partnerships, special projects, and editorial operations. As a founding editor, Akoto helped secure more than 170 local and national editorial partners for The Trace’s features and investigations. Previously, she held the position of Associate Editor and Social Media Manager at The Root and as a Senior Editor at Essence Magazine. In 2015, she completed a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University, where she focused on issues surrounding diversity and the Black press. She was selected as a 2019-2020 Emerging Leader for the Institute of Nonprofit News.

Changing the Narrative by Changing the Storyteller