About the founder

 

I specialize in leading editorial teams, developing emerging voices, creating inclusive content strategy, and growing audiences. Transforming stories, publications, and organizations with a seamless user experience in mind, my 20+ years of expertise encompasses digital strategy, user engagement, visual journalism, copy editing, and media instruction. My global perspective is shaped by working across diverse cultural and socioeconomic settings in the U.S. and internationally.

I work as a pop-up Digital Editor with NPR's Next Generation Radio and as a workplace culture facilitator at Headway Training. In the fall, I led a cohort of Report for America corps members as editor and mentor on the grant-funded solutions journalism project: Agents of Change: Community efforts to overcome racial inequities.

I’m currently obsessed with reaching audiences through news simplification, the language news media uses in editorial content, and thoughtfully connecting citizens with news that relates to their lives. In May, I completed Solutions Journalism Network’s Train-the-Trainers program and a trauma-informed leadership workshop with API. Delving into LLMs (AI) provides me with the skills to support you in the challenge of optimizing for search in the age of Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek.

Key expertise:

Editorial Leadership | As a mindfulness coach, workplace culture facilitator, and trauma-informed leader, I’m well-positioned to foster a healthy environment that’s accessible and facilitates a sense of belonging. From directing teams of high school journalists to co-managing a group of 160 far-flung freelancers who published directly online before edits, I’ve excelled at nurturing producers and elevating content quality while ensuring accuracy and consistent style.

Audience Growth | I pair data-driven insights on reach and conversion with inclusive storytelling that resonates. A dynamic self-starter, I increased new users by 32% through self-taught SEO expertise during my first year at The Mom Edit (TME). Hired to expand reader diversity, I conceived and built sustainability, and small- and Black-owned business hubs, in addition to championing size-inclusive content, cementing the company’s reputation for thoughtfulness.

Copy Editing | My journey from newspaper photojournalist to trained copy editor includes teaching rhetorical analysis, travel/lifestyle editing, and establishing brand style guidelines, I spent three years co-mentoring freelancers for a prestigious international editorial project requiring style expertise in both U.S. and UK English, plus knowledge of regional nuances in world English. Identifying growth opportunities while maintaining editorial excellence is my sweet spot.

Past roles include Chief Innovation Officer for a daily lifestyle blog, co-manager of a remote team of 160 writers across the globe, journalism instructor, and ELA Department Head at a premier international school.

When I’m not wordsmithing or workshopping, you can find me in a confab, parenting my kiddo, on a yoga mat, in a dance class, or in the bike lane. Spilling the astrological tea and building personalized mindfulness maps is also on my agenda. Whatever I’m doing, I’d rather be doing it outside.

NPR’s Next Generation Radio - Digital Editor

I developed many of the current workflows the digital editors currently use during NPR’s Next Generation Radio, a week-long, pop-up audio and digital journalism training project. Digital editors guide reporters in the process of conceptualizing and executing a multimedia presentation, and liaise with other editors to manage progress. We edit and layout the final product.

This is the main image for the Agents of Change project with The GroundTruth and Report for America. The illustration features parts of each individual hero illustration with a door in the center. The door includes a rising sun + people entering.

Agents of Change - Editor & Web Producer

I had the pleasure of working as an editor with The GroundTruth Project and Report for America journalists telling stories through a solutions lens. Agents of Change: Community Efforts to Overcome Racial Inequities is an editorial series created with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation that highlights how local initiatives address racial inequalities through grassroots approaches.

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The Mom Edit -

As content strategist, SEO copy editor and Chief Innovation Officer, I helped solidify the blog’s reputation for being “more than just fashion.” We launched the Sustainable Style, and Small and Black-owned Business hubs at a time when readers expected social responsibility. I spearheaded the workflow for our YouTube channel, maximizing traffic when audiences were increasingly turning to video. I optimized Pinterest for search, making it a leader in organic reach for TME.

Starting out as a part-time copy editor, I taught myself most aspects of my job, including search engine optimization, analytics and trend forecasting. I always joked with people that “I didn’t do the fashion,” and for the most part, I didn’t. One of the ways I diversified content at The Mom Edit was by writing an issues-oriented column called “Unpacking With Lex.” Some readers didn’t always enjoy what I had to say, but liking societal realities wasn’t the point—expanding the audience was.

(*The voice of the blog was intended to be “not-too-serious” and with a few exceptions, articles—regardless of topic—were required to adhere to that style.)

Hotel Editorial Project

At Moravia (now RWS), I was a standout quality control editor (QCer) for the Hotel Editorial Project. An exercise in the balance between accuracy and speed, I developed a number of processes and workflows to improve freelancer quality while we produced descriptions for every eligible lodging in the world, writing in an objective tone for the average global user.