Here are the experts who lead cohort coaching for the LMA Lab for Journalism Funding.
Joaquín Alvarado
Joaquín Alvarado is the Founder of Studiotobe, a media production and consulting firm dedicated to journalism, storytelling, and community-based impact. Prior to Studiotobe Joaquin served as CEO of The Center for Investigative Reporting until September 2017. Before joining CIR, he was senior vice president for digital innovation at American Public Media and founding senior vice president for diversity and innovation at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He also has been a strategic consultant for many leading media companies and nonprofits, including Microsoft, Univision, NBC News, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the James B. McClatchy Foundation.
His recent work with Microsoft’s Journalism initiative is available on the Microsoft Journalism Hub.
In 2007 he launched CoCo Studios, an early VR media collaboration platform for fiber and mobile networks. Alvarado was the founding director of the Institute for Next Generation Internet, which launched in 2005 from San Francisco State University. Alvarado holds a bachelor’s degree in Chicano Studies from UC Berkeley and an MFA from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
A veteran of many nonprofit boards, Joaquin currently serves on the boards of Consumer Reports, the James B McClatchy Foundation, Rebuild Local News Coalition, Aurora Sentinel Community Media and 826 National. He is the co-author of the two-volume “Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art” (Bilingual Press, 2002).
Joanne Heyman
Joanne Heyman, founder and CEO of Heyman Partners, is widely recognized as a transformative force for good, bringing a mission-driven focus to institutions across sectors, cultures and countries. A highly sought-after coach, facilitator, strategic advisor, and lecturer, Heyman has led organizations and counseled leadership of foundations, non-profits, social enterprises, media companies and creative institutions. Her work with individuals and teams is often credited with their achievement of sustainable and measurable success, including healthy, thriving cultures.
She was the founding executive director of the Urban Zen Foundation and has also served as the executive director of The International Center in New York, vice president of the Corporation of Yaddo, managing director of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps and as a senior advisor to The Goldman Sachs Foundation and the American Jewish World Service.
Heyman holds an M.A. from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a B.A. in comparative literature from Smith College. She serves as the chair of the board of directors of The GroundTruth Project/Report for America. She is a guide at Chief, a coach and facilitator Mobius Leadership, a presenting expert in the Kahilla community and platform, and a coach in multiple national programs supporting local media leaders and institutions. Additionally, Heyman is a regular lecturer at Columbia University and contributor to Forbes.
Heyman lives with her family outside of New York City, and is an avid yogi, cook and outdoor enthusiast.
Samantha Johnston
Samantha Johnston is an experienced media executive with a proven track record of building the kind of company culture and climate that drives business results. She has more than 20 years of media management experience with a specialty in sales management and talent development, organizational change, philanthropic fundraising and consumer revenue, leadership mentoring and development and strategic alignment.
Sam is the founder and CEO of Strategy Hound, LLC, a culture, communication and strategic media management company based in Colorado. She provides leadership development and coaching for high-level managers, guides leadership teams toward strategic alignment and creating North Star visions and assists businesses of all sizes in aligning talent, resources and culture to drive desired operational outcomes.
Prior to launching Strategy Hound, Samantha was the general manager for Colorado Mountain News Media and publisher of The Aspen Times. In her role at Swift Communications, she oversaw all day-to-day operations for a seven-day-a-week newspaper and digital company, a shared copy and design desk serving five daily newspapers, membership and philanthropic journalism efforts, a resort market strategic operating team and was responsible for oversight of Colorado Mountain News Media’s Colorado properties including Aspen, Glenwood, Steamboat Springs, Craig and Summit County.
Sam’s career path includes media management, healthcare executive, political consultant, fire department lieutenant, and non-profit director, but local journalism has always had her heart.
Sam holds a B.A. degree in Journalism from Colorado State University and an M.B.A. from Regis University in Denver. She lives in Emma, Colorado with her fiancée and rescue hound, Ernie.
Jennifer Preston
Jennifer Preston, a veteran journalist and independent philanthropic advisor, joined the Lab for Journalism Funding in 2022.
She previously spent almost two decades as a reporter, senior editor, newsroom executive and social media pioneer at The New York Times. In 2014, she left the Times to take on the role of Vice President at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Miami, where she helped shift Knight’s strategic priorities to address the crisis in local news.
During her tenure, she managed Knight’s multi-million dollar portfolio that fueled the explosive growth in nonprofit journalism and the digital transformation of local newsrooms. Knight’s investments helped launch NewsMatch, Table Stakes, Report for America and the American Journalism Project and focused on helping local funders and news providers strengthen their communities with sustainable, inclusive and equitable solutions.
In 2022, she created the Accelerate Philanthropy for Journalism project while a senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. The project provides strategic guidance to Press Forward chapters, private foundations, community foundations and local funders on how to apply best practices in sustainability, equity and inclusion and journalism ethics to produce transformational change. In 2023, she led and commissioned the first comprehensive research on the growing role of philanthropy in journalism with NORC, the Lenfest Institute and Media Impact Funders.
Liz White Notarangelo
Liz White Notarangelo is co-CEO of Local Media Association and Local Media Foundation and she is a diehard supporter of the industry. She is very passionate about LMA’s mission to reinvent business models for news to support a strong democracy — so much so that she served on the LMA and LMF boards for eight years and her former family company was an LMA member for 15 years.
Liz is also the former 5th generation family owner, publisher, executive vice president of the 156-year-old Record-Journal Media Group in Connecticut. She has a demonstrated history of innovating, developing new revenue streams and helping the business evolve, especially in cutting edge digital strategies.
She earned an MBA from Yale and a BS from Boston College. She also served for eight years on the Meriden-New Britain-Berlin YMCA board of directors, including three as president.
She has been recognized previously by Editor & Publisher Magazine as one of The 25 Under 35 in the industry and by the Hartford Business Journal as one of The 40 Under 40. She was also a recipient of the Women’s Achievement Award for Excellence in Business from the Quinnipiac Chamber of Commerce.
She lives in Cheshire, CT with her husband and two sons. She’s a soccer coach, a huge Yankees fan, and she loves adventures and celebrating – anything small to large – because she believes what gets celebrated gets repeated.
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