Loretta Chao is head of Startup Studio & Local News Innovation for the American Journalism Project.

She oversees the Startup Studio, which supports local news initiatives in the establishment and incubation of startup organizations alongside a coalition of community stakeholders, local philanthropies and management talent.

She got her start in journalism at Newsday and the New York Daily News before covering tech and business for The Wall Street Journal. Loretta has also worked as a correspondent in Brazil and China, where she won awards for reporting on internet censorship and surveillance. Most recently, she was director of strategy and operations at VICE Media, where she oversaw editorial strategy for its first direct-to-consumer subscription product and worked on programming and execution of its first major live-streaming news production.

Loretta is based in New York.

She will be joined by representatives from Signal Ohio offices, to discuss how the Signal news organizations are changing the local media landsccape.