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 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
Mark Speich is the vice president of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) since 2022. He is a member of the Administrative Board of Deutsche Welle. Since 2017, Speich serves as state secretary for Federal, European and International Affairs of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, where has also been also responsible for Media Politics since 2022.
Dr. Mark Speich was educated at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge (MPhil) and the University of Bonn (PhD). He studied History, Political Science and Constitutional Law.
Ariadne Papagapitos is Impact editor at Lighthouse Reports. She has 15 years of experience building programmes on conflict resolution, governance and human rights in complex contexts for philanthropic institutions and nonprofits. Prior to joining Lighthouse, she was a consultant to foundations working on forced migration, director of the Peacebuilding program at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Co-Founder and New Markets Director at Localized, a startup social enterprise focused on closing the skills and employment gap for young people in developing markets.
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
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
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
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
