A little more about me

Don’t let the notebook fool you — I’ve had a passion for digital media since college. I helped launch my university’s first online-only publication; we were known in the journalism building as the “crazy web kids” who built audio slideshows and created Adobe Flash games.

CNN hired me right after graduation in 2008 to be part of its digital features team. A year later I was writing tech and entertainment stories, creating galleries and reporting from the red carpet at the Oscars.

I joined the Health team in 2012 and led CNN’s digital coverage through the Ebola crisis. Health and wellness reporting remains one of my biggest passions today. Give me the current issue of JAMA, and I will devour it like a Nora Roberts novel.

CNN Digital Video recruited me in 2014. As a small group telling great stories, they dreamed of becoming more integrated into newsroom. Today I lead a team of more than 50 amazing journalists based around the world who still tell great stories — and contribute a significant chunk of revenue to the company’s bottom line.

Digital media is always changing. But these rules never do:

Good journalism is good business.

Tell the audience something they don’t know. Anger or delight them. Be curious, always. These simple tenets of storytelling are at the basis of everything I do.

Radical honesty and kindness are not mutually exclusive.

I believe both are essential to a productive and engaged team. If we are brutally honest with ourselves, and our colleagues, about our work — we will keep moving forward. And if we approach those honest conversations with kindness, we remain whole.