Mariko Lochridge joins LION as the Tiny News Collective Product Manager

Just after announcing our partnership with News Catalyst to launch the Tiny News Collective, we hired Mariko Lochridge as the project’s product manager.

Mariko was most recently a small business consultant in Los Angeles county serving over 200 entrepreneurs in the Japanese diaspora. During her time in that role she conceptualized and launched a community driven small business incubator based in the historic community of Little Tokyo. The project provided the opportunity for the next generation of Nikkei entrepreneurs to explore a brick and mortar storefront business model while also examining themes of community control and self-determination through the lens of entrepreneurship. In 2020 she supported mom and pop small businesses through the small business funding application process helping mostly monolingual Japanese speakers cumulatively access over 2 million in federal, state and local stimulus capital. Prior to her time as a consultant, Mariko worked as a breaking news journalist reporting from over 12 countries worldwide for Reuters Video News and later Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television. Raised in Tokyo, Japan she currently resides in downtown Los Angeles.

In this role, Mariko will work closely with the News Catalyst and LION teams to design and execute the onboarding and training for Tiny News Publishers, including how to use the tech platform, get set up on the operations tools and get trained on  the fundamentals of how to design, launch and run a Tiny News business. You can reach her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @MarikoLochridge.

If you are interested in launching a Tiny News organization or want to nominate a potential Tiny News founder, fill out this form. Our goal is to launch our first cohort of publishers in the Spring. Learn more about the Tiny News Collective.