We are thrilled to share with you the Evaluation Jury members for the upcoming Deep-Dive Business Consultancies programme designed to level up your media business capacities through strategic guidance and technical assistance.
A team of three media professionals with decades of experience and diverse backgrounds will be taking on a challenging task of choosing media organizations across Europe that fulfill criteria to join the Media Innovation Europe initiative. Those who become part of the Deep-Dive Business Consultancies will receive strategic guidance, mentoring and training, as well as grant funding.
Want to be part of Thomson Foundation’s Deep-Dive Business Consultancies? Apply until October 28.
Helping us choose media organizations from 35 European countries are Anna Vissens, Christoph Lanz and Jernej Verbič.
Anna Vissens currently works as a team leader of data scientists at the UK-based Guardian News and Media. Prior to this, Anna worked at the BBC where she received an award for best producer in recognition of success in building new audiences and developing an effective social media strategy. Anna has nearly 10 years of experience as a digital media expert providing training and mentoring for small and medium newsrooms around the world. Her primary areas of expertise include audience research, data-informed newsrooms, fact-checking and social media verification. In 2021 and 2022 she delivered training modules for LSE’s AI Academy for small newsrooms. Anna also dedicates her time to outreach work, talking at digital media conferences and data science festivals.
Our second jury member is Christoph Lanz – a Trustee of the Thomson Foundation, UK and Head of the Board of Thomson Media Germany. He works as a journalist and strategic consultant for media development. Lanz began his journalistic career as a reporter and editor for ARD. I As editor-in-chief, he was responsible for setting up the German foreign television channel, DW-TV. He was subsequently appointed Multimedia Director Global of Deutsche Welle. Christoph Lanz is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and a member of the Board of Trustees of the M100 Sanssouci Media Colloquium in Potsdam.
Jernej Verbič is a managing partner and content consultant at Slovenian’s newsroom studio Top Stories (Dobre zgodbe), a Slovenian brand newsroom studio for business content strategies. His primary area of interest are owned media formats for brands. Before co-funding his own company five years ago, he served as deputy editor-in-chief for digital integration at the largest Slovenian newspaper Delo, executive editor and NYC story contributor for the Dnevnik daily, story producer at the Val 202 public radio station, and news reporter for Pop TV, the biggest Slovenian commercial TV channel.
Media Innovation Europe is a new initiative run and implemented by the International Press Institute, Thomson Foundation, the Media Development Foundation and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network with the goal of empowering newsrooms to achieve editorial independence and financial sustainability. Project has been funded by the European Union.
