Elaine Díaz joins LION as our Senior Manager of Coaching

We ask every news business what they find most beneficial about our programs, and the answer is invariably the same: the coaching. Participants deeply value the hands-on support, real-talk guidance and cross-industry perspective that our amazing coaches bring to their 1:1 sessions with our members — and they want even more of it.

That’s why we’re delighted to welcome Elaine Díaz to the team as our first-ever Senior Manager of Coaching. Elaine will work to ensure our program participants have access to relevant, practical and actionable coaching support by:

• Building a bench of coaches and analysts with diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise
• Ensuring a high-quality, consistent experience for recipients of coaching
• Designing and executing training programs for coaches and analysts
• Helping build robust professional development opportunities for our members 

Elaine comes to us with both big-picture and on-the-ground experience. She was most recently Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Periodismo de Barrio, an independent investigative publication in Cuba, where she led coverage on social, environmental issues and climate change alongside fundraising and institutional development work.

She has worked with SembraMedia, a non-profit that helps independent media in Ibero-America find and develop sustainable business models. Her work there included serving as an Ambassador Manager for a team of 16 ambassadors representing the digital media ecosystem across Latin America and as a mentor for Metis, a business mentorship program for women founders of independent digital media projects in the region.

Additional career highlights include seven years as a professor of digital journalism at the University of Havana and a 2014-2015 Nieman Fellowship. 

We are incredibly excited to welcome Elaine onboard as we continue to expand our support for independent news business. She is based in Miami, Florida, and you can reach her at [email protected].