About me

Digital journalist. Social media strategist. Writer. Editor. Speaker. Mentor.

I’m a Senior Producer at CNN International in London, where I head up our international social media team (based in London and Hong Kong). I’m also currently leading CNN’s US-based social media team on an interim basis.

My teams and I run some of the biggest news accounts in the world, and I have a consistent track record of growing traffic from those accounts: We more than doubled our traffic from social last year, and grew unique users from key markets by 62%. I spend much of my time refining CNN’s social media strategy, digging deep into data to figure out everything from which platforms we should be on to the best ways to tell stories for our audience. I also love to experiment with new formats — everything from Facebook Messenger bots to Instagram Reels. Day-to-day, I work with my team on running CNN’s accounts: editing posts, cutting video and talking through how we should present the news on social. And I work across the newsroom, commissioning stories in response to both real-time audience trends and anticipated interests, collaborating with reporters in the field to produce social-first content, and regularly sharing social media best practices and trends with my colleagues and beyond.

I’ve been in London for about seven years now, but before that, I was a writer and producer at CNN in Atlanta. As a member of the iReport team, which was CNN’s social media newsgathering arm at the time, I covered everything from immigration policy to identity. I was the editor of our personal essays series, and even designed an iPad app for participatory storytelling. Before that, I studied history, political science, and information science at Duke University, and interned at NPR and the Smithsonian Institution.

While at CNN, I’ve been the recipient of a Peabody Award, Edward R. Murrow Award, Eppy Award, several Webby Awards, an Emmy nomination and others. In 2016, I was selected to attend the ONA-Poynter Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media, and now I mentor fellow women journalists, both aspiring and experienced, through the affiliated Digital Women Leaders mentorship programme. I’m a frequent speaker at conferences and universities around the world on the intersection of journalism and social media, and was named to Journalism.co.uk's list of best non-male speakers.

Besides all that, I’m a violinist (formerly semi-professionally), dancer (definitely *not* semi-professionally), avid theatre-goer, yoga devotee, and animal lover. Before lockdown, I spent a lot of time in museums, parks and my favourite Italian coffee shop. Special skills/party tricks include tea-making (only a special skill stateside) and the ability to spell in both British and American English.