Speakers

Jelena Cosic is ICIJ’s training manager, Eastern European partnership coordinator and data reporter. She worked on ICIJ’s Pandora Papers, Fincen Files, Uber Files and other projects. Jelena has trained over a 1000 investigative reporters all over the world.
Prior to joining ICIJ, she worked as a reporter, regional coordinator and project manager for the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, a grouping of non-government organizations promoting freedom of speech, human rights and democratic values across southern and eastern Europe.
She has received several investigative journalism awards, including a Certificate of Excellence, Global Shining Light Award; an EU Investigative Journalism Award in the Western Balkans and Turkey; and several awards during her work with ICIJ, Tom Renner Award, finalists for Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Peace Prize nomination. 

Twitter: @ICIJorg

Benjamin Hindrichs is an award-winning freelance journalist from Germany. His coverage focuses mostly on the global far-right, migration, sexual violence, and human rights. He currently lives in Barcelona.

Twitter: @BHindrichs

Marcus Pfeil is the CEO of Vertical52 GmbH in Berlin – the first news agency from space. Together with his co-founder Michael Anthony, he is developing a platform for searching, analysing and visualising satellite and radar data. In this way, they provide journalists, publishers and broadcasters with convenient access to space. They are also building a non-profit academy to enable journalists in exile or from countries with limited press freedom to uncover environmental crimes or human rights abuses. Vertical52 is supported by European Space Agency (ESA), Creative Impact Fund, WPK Innovationsfonds, IJ4EU, Journalismfund.eu, EJC, Medieninnovationszentrum Babelsberg (MIZ), MediaLab Bayern and Stiftung für Medienvielfalt.

Twitter: @MarcusPfeil, @Vertical_52

Elena Ledda is an independent journalist from Sardinia who practises constructive and solutions-focused, narrative, long-form, and slow journalism from a feminist perspective around human rights related issues. Ledda is a professor of Social issues journalism and Ethics from an intersectional perspective at the BCN_NY Master Degree in Journalism (collaboration between Universitat de Barcelona and Columbia Journalism School). She also works as a journalism project manager and at present is the Southern Europe coordinator of the Oasis Project. In 2022-2023 she coordinated the IJ4EU and JournalismFund funded project “The Bankers of irregular migration.”

Twitter: @Ele_nedda

Tina Xu is a journalist based in Berlin creating in-depth immersive multimedia experiences. In 2023, she coordinated a cross-border investigative team of ten journalists reporting in eight countries for a VR interactive on the proliferation of unmarked graves of people who lose their lives trying to come to Europe. She has been nominated for the Refugee Reporting Award from One World Media, the Innovation Award of the European Press Prize. She received the Excellence in Environmental Reporting Award from the Society of Publishers in Asia. She nerds out about how innovative forms of storytelling can imbue age-old journalistic issues with increased human depth and contextual richness.

Twitter: @tinayingxu

Stanislau Ivashkevich is the founder of Belarusian Investigative Center (registered in Czech Republic), producing over a dozen of investigations of corruption per year.

Stanislau Ivashkevich received national Free Word awards for a journalistic investigation in 2018, 2019 and 2020 (annual competition held by Belarusian Association of Journalists) and Show of the Year award (2019) from Belsat TV for the investigative TV program. In journalism since 2009. Before engaging in journalism Stanislau worked for market intelligence companies Euromonitor International Plc and Marcus Evans Plc.

After the 2020 presidential election in Belarus, Stanislau went missing for a few days. The independent journalist was incarcerated for alleged unlafwul activities. He spent days in a prison cell that fits 3 people. Then, it hosted 13 detainees, some of them injured by the security forces. For two days, all these people received no food, apart a single loaf of bread for all of them. Stanislau was released from custody after the journalist community undertook active efforts to seek his release. He was fined for participating in ‘unsanctioned activities’. The court refused to look at Stanislau’s evidence on the fact that all he was doing was reporting.

Twitter: @StasIvasBIC

Louis Goddard is co-founder of Data Desk, an investigative consultancy, where he leads the research function. He previously worked at Global Witness and The Times of London producing data-driven investigations, including as part of a high-impact campaign against Russian fossil fuel exports. He studied at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and has a PhD from the University of Sussex.

Twitter: @ltrgoddard

Albert Lores is a Spanish photojournalist, based in Kyiv, Ukraine since 2017. He contributes regularly to Le Figaro and El Mundo, and has been reporting on the Russo-Ukrainian war since 2014. His work has also been published in outlets like Vice, Liberation, Delft, and Tagesspiegel among others. Before his focus on Ukraine, Albert covered areas including Indian-controlled Kashmir, Kachin State in Myanmar, Transnistria in Moldova and Abkhazia in Georgia. His photographs have been exhibited in several venues across Europe.

Twitter: @lores_albert

Hanna Jarzabek lived in Geneva between 1996 and 2008, where she finished her Master’s in Political Science and worked as an analyst-political scientist, preparing reports on refugees for UN agencies such as UNRWA, OCHA, UNCTAD. She developed her passion for documentary photography on trips to the Philippines, the Gaza Strip and Iran (2001, 2002-2003 and 2008 respectively). Based in Spain since 2008, Jarzabek combines her work as a documentary photographer and freelance photojournalist with teaching at the EFTI International Center for Photography and Film (Madrid). Her reports were published in El País, Newsweek Japan, XL Semanal, BuzzFeed News, L’Obs, Internazionale, Equal Times, 5W magazine, Interviú, Le Temps Magazine, 7k magazine, Gazeta Wyborcza, and Polityka, among others.

Photo by: Ana Valiño

Twitter: @HannaJarzabek
Instagram: @hanna_jar

Giada Santana is an Italian – Dominican journalist based in Paris, focused on stories at the intersection of social justice and climate. Santana has a passion for audio stories, but works in print and video, as well. She recently published a multimedia, cross border investigation regarding the impact of hotter temperatures on the living and working conditions of agricultural workers in Spain and Italy.

Twitter: @giada_santana

Journalist for more than seven years, Emmanuelle Picaud has investigated various subjects, from the ecological transition of architecture to academic research in the field of social sciences. She became a freelancer in 2021 after five years of writing in French specialised press as a section editor. Since this period, she has published investigations in the national and international press, in le Monde (France), the BBC (England), El Diario.es (Spain) and le Temps (Switzerland). In 2023 she was the coordinator of the European investigation “Cashing on carbon credits”, a series of articles that demonstrate how cement and siderurgy companies used free allowances to generate billions of profits on the European carbon market.
Regarding her academic background, she has a specialisation in scientific journalism (she has a master’s degree from Lille Lille School of Journalism in France), a master’s degree in Urbanism and a Bachelor’s in Philosophy. She regularly writes for newspapers specialised in these fields.
Picaud speaks French, English, and Chinese (Mandarin).

Twitter: @epicaud1

Tim Luimes is an investigative journalist specialising in corporate harm by the chemical, tobacco and food industry. He is deputy editor-in-chief at the Amsterdam-based journalism collective The Investigative Desk. He initiated the Forever Pollution Project, which revealed pollution by “forever chemicals” across Europe. Currently, he is focussing on exposing tax avoidance and evasion by Western multinationals in Africa.

Twitter: @tjluimes, @InvestigativeD

Ovidiu Stancu has a background as an independent video producer, being involved in various projects, such as documentaries, short and long feature films, working with internationally awarded directors from Romania such as Radu Jude, Paul Negoescu, and Marian Crisan. He is one of the in-house video producers for Vice Romania working on creating local content for Vice as well as on projects such as “A Curse On Corruption” for Vice UK. Being interested in unknown Romanian stories, Stancu sometimes manages to reveal the truth about the local exorcists in Romania through images.
Stancu has specialised and worked on investigations into animal welfare in Romania for the last ten years. Some projects have been independent, such as the film “Man’s Best Friend” for The Black Sea.
Together with Michael Bird he has formed a team that has worked as undercover investigators for Austrian charity Vier Pfoten to film abuses in dog shelters, and recently to expose chinchilla fur farms for Humane Society International, which was widely spread in the U.S. national press. This provoked a law change in Romania to abolish chinchilla and mink fur farming in 2022, which passed Romania’s lower parliament. Their work on animal welfare has been popular and impactful.

Jon West is a documentary filmmaker, freelance journalist, and researcher based in Finland. He has been working in the media industry since 1993. Jon’s recent works include, “Pedigree Dream”, a documentary trilogy about the European dog trade and “Syntynyt kauppatavaraksi” (Born as a Merchandise) a 10-episode adaptation of Pedigree Dream, aired in Finnish TV broadcaster EVEO 2023, and “Kuolemanjuoksu” (The Deathrun), a documentary film about a Finnish veterinarian rescuing mistreated galgos from Spain to Finland (Spanish greyhounds).
Dogs have always been part of Jon’s life and work. He has published two books about dogs and written several stories, magazine articles, and online articles about the animals, both fictional and informative. In June 2021, Jon West founded an association, Perro On The Road, to investigate the dog trade and consumer protection issues.

Julia Amberger is an award-winning investigative reporter and researcher based in Berlin. She reports mostly from African and European countries focusing on immersive storytelling and investigations. Amberger has uncovered a corrupt network within UNHCR offices in Uganda and Kenya and explored how blast fishing along the east African coast goes together with the smuggling of explosives. As she grew up in nature, she has a particular interest in environmental topics and how the value of certain species like tunas or pangolins is translated into buildings or weapons. Her stories are published in print magazines such as GEO, Stern, Internazionale, and REPORTAGEN in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, as well as the German radio station Deutschlandradio and the French-German TV channel Arte. Apart from her journalistic work, she is doing field research and data analysis for a German think tank.

Twitter: @juliaamberger

Emma Bergmans is a safety specialist currently working on issues related to the online harassment of (women) journalists, legal intimidation of media workers, and the importance of media in exile in Free Press Unlimited’s Policy & Advocacy team. Previously, Bergmans coordinated FPU’s Safety & Emergency Assistance programme, providing rapid support to journalists worldwide facing a situation of distress and developing new interventions to improve the safety of journalists. She holds a Master’s degree in Conflict Studies & Human Rights and worked on the rights of refugees before joining Free Press Unlimited.

Twitter: @BergmansEmma, @freepressunltd

Camille Petit works as a Communications and Project officer at the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) in Brussels. She studied journalism in France and holds a master’s degree in European studies from La Sorbonne Nouvelle. Prior to joining the EFJ in 2016, she worked as a journalist for different regional media outlets.

Twitter: @CamilleMPetit, @EFJEUROPE

Iliana Papangeli is the managing director of Solomon, an investigative non-profit newsroom based in Greece. She has been nominated for the European Press Prize ’21 and won the IJ4EU Impact Award ’22. She has participated in several cross-border investigations and her work has been published in media across Europe. She has served as a jury at the IJ4EU Impact Award 2023 and the Evens Journalism Prize 2021. She has a background in Psychology and Social Anthropology.

Twitter: @IPapangeli, @we_are_solomon

Elena Loginova joined OCCRP in 2017 as an investigative reporter. She has been a team member on the Paradise Papers, FinCEN Files, and Pandora Papers projects. Elena also worked as a filmmaker for Slidstvo.Info, an OCCRP member center in Ukraine. In 2021, she received the Ukrainian “Honor of Profession” award in the investigative journalism category for her documentary Break the Bank.
Elena was a reporter/producer for the investigative documentary Killing Pavel about the murder of Ukrainian journalist Pavel Sheremet. The documentary won the 2017 Investigative Reporters and Editors medal (USA) and the 2018 DIG award (Italy). She has a degree in International Information from National Aviation University.

Twitter: @ElenaMultipass

As a former freelance investigative journalist and with over 10 years of professional project management experience, Coco Gubbels shares techniques for coordinating and facilitating an investigative team like a pro. She studied cultural anthropology and understands the benefits and pitfalls of multicultural and multidisciplinary teams.
She realised that her knowledge and skills would fill a gap in the development of this new type of investigation as the number of collaborating journalists grew. She is committed to supporting the development of robust cross-border investigations and assisting team coordinators to ensure that the team can focus on the investigation.

Twitter: @PostVanCoco

Pierre Romera Zhang has been Chief Technology Officer at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 2017. He manages a team working on the platforms that enabled more than hundreds journalists to collaborate on the Pandora Papers, the Uber Files, the FinCEN Files, or the Panama Papers. Before that, he co-founded Journalism++, the franco-German data journalism agency behind The Migrant Files, a project that won the European Press Prize in 2015 for Innovation. He is one of the pioneers of data journalism in France.

Twitter: @pirhoo

Flutura Kusari leads the legal support programme and advocates with international organisations to improve legislation to defend freedom of expression. In addition, she advises journalists on pre- and post-publication legal matters such as defamation, access to information, contempt of court, and privacy. Kusari previously worked for various civil society organisations including the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network and the Kosovar Stability Initiative on human rights, media, rule of law, and the judicial system. She holds a Ph.D. in Media Law from Ghent University, Belgium.

Twitter: @fluturakusari

Zlatina Siderova works as Programme Lead Grants at the European Journalism Centre (EJC). She joined EJC in 2018 and has fourteen years of project management and consulting experience in the public, private, and NGO sectors, including programmes implemented with the financial support of the EU.

Gürkan Özturan was trained in the field of European Studies as a researcher on radicalization and polarisation during his master’s degrees at Centre International de Formation Europeenne and Istanbul Bilgi University. Özturan previously worked as a journalist and executive manager at dokuz8NEWS and frequently appeared on international media as a commentator on Turkey and digital rights. He has served as board member for various anti-racism and rights-focused civil society organisations and social movements in Turkey. Currently he is a board member for Turkey-European Foundation, Media Research Association, Trauma & Life Association and Red Ribbon Istanbul. Özturan is a registered member of the Journalists Union of Turkey and International Federation of Journalists. Özturan currently works as the coordinator of Media Freedom Rapid Response at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom in Leipzig, Germany.

Twitter: @obefintlig

Andreas Lamm is part of the management team and responsible for project development and organisational tasks. He advocates for the mission and values of ECPMF amongst partners and external organisations. As art director, he supports external communication with strong visuals to strengthen the voice of ECPMF and is responsible for all visual and graphic content and for corporate design. In addition, he takes care of HR and supports the boards. He is an accomplished photographer, videographer, and website designer, who also lectures at the journalism department of the University of Leipzig. Andreas gained his MA in Communication and Media Science, American Studies, and Psychology.

Twitter: @AndreasLamm

Timothy Large is Director of Independent Media Programmes at International Press Institute. He is an award-winning journalist, editor and media development specialist who runs the IJ4EU programme for IPI, which leads the IJ4EU consortium. Before joining IPI in 2020, he was Founding Editor of the Reporting Democracy cross-border journalism platform and Editor of the Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence at the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. Prior to that, he was Director of Reuters media development programmes, setting up independent news services in countries in transition, Editor-in-Chief of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Editor of the Reuters AlertNet global humanitarian news service, and a Reuters correspondent.

Twitter: @timothylarge

Lutz Kinkel represents and manages the ECPMF. Lutz worked in the German press for more than twenty years, giving special focus to the areas of politics and media. He was an editor at Spiegel-Online and tagesschau.de and more recently head of the stern-online office in Berlin. He did his master’s degree at Hamburg University in history, politics and economics. His dissertation examines the life of Nazi film director Leni Riefenstahl. Lutz teaches journalism at the Akademie für Publizistik, Hamburg.

Twitter: @l_kinkel

Deniz Bozkurt is the event and IJ4EU programme manager at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom since 2022. She organises the UNCOVERED Conference and #IJ4EU Impact Award. Previously, she worked as a research associate at various interdisciplinary institutions in Leipzig. She holds a doctorate degree in American Studies from Leipzig University. She is a mother of two cats.

Twitter: @DenizBozkurtP

Jesse Pinster is a Brussels-based journalist who has been reporting on the European Union for eight years. Currently he is part of the Brussels Bureau of the Dutch investigative platform Follow the Money. His research and publications cover climate and trade policy and political parties and think tanks in Europe. Follow the Money has been steadily expanding its team in Brussels which covers EU-related topics, initiates cross border projects and publishes in both Dutch and English.

Twitter: @jessepinster

Lise Witteman is team lead of the EU desk of investigative journalism platform Follow the Money. Our Brussels based team specialises in (data driven) investigations into EU affairs, such as the Recovery Files investigation. In the run up to the European elections of 2024 we have some great new investigations in mind for which we seek journalists from all member states to collaborate with.

Twitter: @LiseWitteman

Giulia Lucchese works at the Media and Internet Governance Division, Information Society Department, of the Council of Europe. She is the Secretary to the Expert Committee on Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation, tasked to draft a Council of Europe Recommendation on countering the use of SLAPPs. She carries out standard-setting activities in the field of freedom of expression, with a focus on the safety of journalists and hate speech.

Twitter: @GiuliaLucchese

Frane Maroević is the executive director at International Press Institute. He brings to this position over 30 years experience in journalism, media development and press freedom. He developed his passion for journalism and learned the skills, professional standards and values of this profession at the BBC World Service in London. In post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina he worked on the reform of public broadcasting, media regulation and managed donor support for independent media. As the director of the office of the OSCE media freedom representative, he managed responses to numerous cases of media freedom violations in 57 countries that are part of this intergovernmental organization. Just before joining IPI, his work at the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network and the Freedom Online Coalition Advisory Network focused on threats to online freedom of expression.

Twitter: @Frane_M

Jelena Prtorić is a freelance journalist who has reported for a wide variety of publications in English, French and her native Croatian. Her work has focused on gender and human rights, migration, the environment/climate, and social movements through an investigative and (often) cross-border lens. Since 2020, Jelena has been collaborating with Arena for Journalism in Europe, working on the development of the Arena Climate Network and curating the program for Dataharvest – a European investigative journalism conference.

Anna Myroniuk is the head of investigations at the Kyiv Independent. Anna has run investigative projects on human rights, healthcare and illicit trade. She also investigated political and corporate misconduct and alleged wrongdoings in the Ukraine army’s leadership. Anna holds a Masters in Investigative Journalism from the City University of London. She is a Chevening Scholar, the European Press Prize 2023 winner, the winner of the #AllForJan Award 2023, an honoree of the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Media & Marketing list, the runner-up in the investigative reporting category of the 2022 European Press Prize, and a finalist of the 2022 Ukraine’s National Investigative Journalism Award and the 2020 Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award.

Twitter: @AnnaMyroniuk

Charlotte Alfred is an investigative editor and journalist. She runs Lighthouse Reports’ War Winners newsroom which investigates exploitation and profiteering in countries emerging from conflict, in partnership with local and exiled journalists. Previously based in the Middle East, she has worked in news, documentary and longform, reporting on migration, misinformation, corruption and conflict.

Twitter: @charlottealfred

Heorhii Shabayev is a journalist with Schemes (Skhemy), an investigative news project run by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service. He is a graduate of the Institute of Journalism at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and the author of a dozen investigations into corruption in the government, the construction industry, and in large state-owned enterprises.