ProPublica announced today that Celeste LeCompte has been appointed its director of business development, a new position. LeCompte will work to enhance the organization’s effectiveness and sustainability through various responsibilities, including leading efforts to generate new earned revenues and small-dollar donations, forging new business partnerships, and playing a key role in shaping ProPublica’s organizational strategy in a shifting news environment. She will start on Oct. 29 and report to president Richard Tofel.
A media entrepreneur and journalist with a special focus on innovation, sustainable business and open technologies, LeCompte comes to ProPublica after recently completing a Nieman Foundation for Journalism fellowship at Harvard University. As a Nieman Fellow, LeCompte studied motivations for news consumption, with an eye toward developing new, reader-centric media business models.
LeCompte previously served on the launch team for Gigaom Research, a market research service specializing in emerging technologies. As director of product and special projects editor, she developed editorial strategy, oversaw consumer sales and managed partnerships with major media outlets. LeCompte was also a co-founder and business manager of Climate Confidential, a crowdfunded reporting project that examined the intersection of environment and technology in collaboration with national and local media partners. She has also advised on product development and content strategy for numerous other media companies, nonprofits and corporate clients.
“ProPublica is a leader of so much innovation happening in journalism today, from how technology is used to report and tell stories to the way media organizations measure the impact of their work,” said LeCompte. “I’m thrilled to be joining such a creative, results-driven team as we seek new ways to deeply engage with communities and to ensure the long-term economic stability of public-interest journalism. This is going to be fun.”
“Celeste LeCompte is a wonderful addition to the ProPublica team,” said Tofel. “She brings a dynamic background to this role, melding a deep appreciation for both news and the news business. We are confident her diverse expertise will help spur ProPublica’s continued growth.”
