The Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School is proud to announce its third cohort of Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIRs). Each of these professionals has significant experience with media startups, and impressive journalism credentials. Their full bios and calendars are available on our website — feel free to schedule an appointment and talk to them about your venture ideas!
The Brown Institute’s 2023-2024 Entrepreneurs-in-Residence
Diane Chang is a journalist-turned-product manager with a decade of experience building products that empower people, media businesses, and social platforms to be active and sustainable participants in strengthening our civic fabric.
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Ethar El-Katatney is a digital newsroom manager and strategist with over fifteen years of international journalism experience working on news, features and investigative stories in multiple mediums on multiple platforms. She is currently the Audience & News Product Strategy Lead for the Americas at Bloomberg.
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Jennifer 8. Lee is an entrepreneur, documentary producer, journalist, seed investor and emoji activist. She has been a reporter for the New York Times. She has co-led an Angel List seed investment fund for Y Combinator. And she was a 2018 Fast Company Most Creative Person in Business.
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Shazna Nessa has a storied history of working across technology, design and journalism in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. She has most recently been a masthead editor at The Wall Street Journal, where she was responsible for unique digital experiences and the visual journalism produced by the publication.
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Entrepreneurship @Brown
Brown has helped students, staff and faculty at Columbia Journalism School pursue new entrepreneurial ventures. We designed and hosted an MS class on “News Products.” We have also sponsored a track in the Columbia Venture Competition focusing on media- and journalism-related startups. And, of course, we have offered “Magic Grants” since 2012 — awarding over 120 such grants, and supporting over 300 people!
This year, we will be hosting a “News Products” workshop the weekend of November 11 led by Dalit Shalom from the New York Times. And in the spring, we will again host the Media Track in the Columbia Venture Competition, supporting “ventures creating new kinds of content, designing new forms of participation, contributing to our understanding of media and society, or experimenting with entirely new ways to communicate.“
Check our web site for these and other entrepreneurial opportunities at the institute!
And please welcome Diane, Ethar, Jenny and Shazna!