Alex Jakana, Megan Price, and Inga Thordar are appointed Directors of the Board of Coda Media

November 7, 2022 — Coda Media announced today the appointment of three new Directors of the Board who bring substantial experience in journalism, media management, foundation grant-giving, NGO management, human rights, and data analysis. 

They are:

Alex Jakana is a Senior Program Officer Philanthropic Partnerships at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, working towards inspiring and enabling more informed and intentional generosity by all. Until November 2022, he was part of the foundation’s Global Media Partnerships team. In that role, Alex helped set up media partnerships for the foundation and managed a portfolio of media investments supporting the foundation’s global health and development goals in Africa, India, China, Europe, and the US. Before joining the foundation, Alex was Executive Producer of editorial partnerships at the BBC in London. Alex also worked for three radio stations in Uganda between 1997 and 2004.

Megan Price is the Executive Director of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, where she drives the organization’s overarching strategy, leads scientific projects, and presents HRDAG’s work to diverse audiences. Her scientific work includes analyzing documents from the National Police Archive in Guatemala and contributing analyses submitted as evidence in multiple court cases in Guatemala. Her work in Syria includes collaborating with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) and Amnesty International on several analyses of conflict-related deaths in that country.

Inga Thordar is an award-winning editor and experienced newsroom leader and media executive. She was the Executive Editor of CNN Digital Worldwide, overseeing all international news, sport and programming teams for more than 6 years, running teams in London, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Lagos and NY. She was previously Senior Editor at the BBC bringing together TV and digital production teams and commissioning. She edited the BBC’s news front page as well as lead digital innovations on both TV and radio platforms. She is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion in newsrooms and has led changes and initiatives in both organizations in this field. 

“Megan, Alex, and Inga’s appointments to Coda’s Board of Directors represent a watershed in Coda’s journey to being a disciplined enterprise,” said Ilan Greenberg, Coda’s Publisher and Editorial Director. “We are now a multifaceted media company engaged in podcasting, enterprise reporting, and editorial partnerships forged globally. These seasoned professionals will contribute immeasurably to governance and oversight, and to Coda’s kinetic level of energy.

The Board of Directors provides Coda Media with corporate governance and strategic counsel at a time of political turbulence and shifting priorities among funders and journalism consumers alike. 

“I am delighted to join esteemed colleagues Nic Dawes, Liz Heron, and Maria Ressa already on Coda’s Board in furthering Coda’s essential editorial mission at this critical time,” said Inga Thordar.

“I anticipate an amazing future for this nonprofit newsroom,” said Alex Jakana. “I look forward to contributing to it in many different ways.”

“Coda’s journalism is concerned with issues vital to understanding the world today,” said Megan Price. “As a Board member, I am eager to help build organizational capacity and resilience.”

“We’re tremendously grateful to Megan, Alex, and Inga for their enthusiasm and commitment to strengthening Coda’s nonprofit mission-driven journalism,” said Natalia Antelava, Coda’s Editor-in-Chief. “They bring backgrounds from three continents and learnings from the worlds of institutional foundations, global broadcast networks, and scientific investigations into human rights abuses. Coda will benefit enormously from their experience and expertise.”

Already serving as Directors of the Board are:

Nicholas Dawes is currently serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Dawes is executive director of The City, an award-winning, nonprofit digital news outlet in New York City. Dawes was previously the deputy executive director for Media at Human Rights Watch. He has also served as chief content officer of Hindustan Times, one of India’s largest news organizations and editor-in-chief of South Africa’s leading investigative and political title, the Mail & Guardian. 

Liz Heron is currently serving as a Director on the Board. She is a digital media executive and journalist who has spent her career specializing in the intersection of reporting, storytelling and digital innovation. Currently, she consults on digital media strategies — for the Knight Foundation and others — after serving most recently as the executive editor of The HuffPost. Before joining The HuffPost, she ran the news and journalism partnerships team at Facebook. Previously, Heron was a senior editor at The Wall Street Journal in charge of news for mobile, social media, audience development and multimedia. Prior to that, she was social media editor at The New York Times.

Maria Ressa is currently serving as a Director on the Board. She co-founded Rappler, the top digital-only news site in the Philippines. As Rappler’s executive editor and CEO, Ressa has endured constant political harassment and arrests by the Duterte government. In 2021, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work “to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” Ressa was also named Time Magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year, and is the recipient of the John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award, the Tucholsky Prize, the Truth to Power Award, and the Four Freedoms Award. 

Ilan Greenberg is the Publisher and Editorial Director of Coda Media. He was a 2015 Tow-Knight Fellow at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism and was a visiting public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington DC. He was a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong and has since written for the New York Times Magazine, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Slate, and Foreign Policy among other publications. Ilan taught writing for six years at the Globalization and International Affairs Program at Bard College. 

Natalia Antelava is the editor in chief of Coda Media. She is an Emmy-nominee and award-winning journalist. Originally from Tbilisi, Georgia she started her career freelancing in West Africa. Since then, she was BBC’s resident correspondent in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle East, Washington DC and India. Her investigations into human rights abuses in Central Asia, Iraq and the United States have won her a number of awards. In addition to a career in broadcast journalism, she has also written for the Guardian, Forbes magazine and the New Yorker among others. 

ABOUT CODA

Coda Story is a digital publication dedicated to providing sustained, granularly focused, 360-degree storytelling on the roots of global crises, like disinformation, authoritarian technology, and the war over science. Storytelling is designed to provide an engaged audience with context, illuminate stakes, and show the continuity between unfurling events around the world. Coda’s journalism is original, supported by our 15 member staff,  and published continuously on the Coda website and with editorial partners.

Coda Media is a 501(c)3 nonprofit media company.