Katie's Going Back to School!

Huge news!

We’re excited to announce that Vocal Fry co-founder Katie Jensen has been accepted to Poynter’s Leadership Academy for Women in Media! She applied to Poynter at the end of 2019 and is grateful to be joining the virtual October 2020 cohort for a few reasons. 

“I was able to make a ton of mistakes this year that will be very fun to discuss with people who are much smarter than I am,” jokes Jensen.

“Our team is growing rapidly. We just hired five brilliant, early-career individuals. We’ve been a very small team since we launched in February 2018, so this is a big shift,” says Jensen. 

“Vocal Fry’s production team is located all across Canada—from Iqaluit to Delta to Montreal—so I'm thrilled that Poynter's mentorship opportunities are going to help me support my team remotely.”

The intensive and competitive training program has helped more than 390 graduates rise to the highest levels of media leadership. Participants receive one-on-one coaching from media executives and learn how to navigate an ever-changing newsroom culture.

Notable Canadian alumni include Hannah Sung, former manager of digital video and podcasts at TVO, Nana aba Duncan, host and producer of CBC’s Fresh Air, and Carley Fortune, executive editor of Refinery29 Canada. Duncan is a 2020-2021 William Southam Journalism Fellow at Massey College in the University of Toronto, and Sung is the 2020 Asper Fellow in Media at Western University.

Jensen recently spoke with Sung and they arrived on the subject of mentorship. “I do have a brilliant mentor in Avery Swartz—founder of Camp Tech—who is an incredible small business owner. Avery is always there for me, and readily shares her perspective as an entrepreneur. But I've never had a mentor within Canadian media, which is another kettle of fish!”

The program is designed to explore issues that are unique to women and offer hands-on mentoring from prominent women leaders in media. Previous cohorts learned about ethics, diversity and inclusion, self-care and mental health, and overcoming imposter syndrome. Jensen is excited to learn from other women and use those skills back home. 

“Hopefully I can make my slice of Canadian media a little better than it was before,” she says. 

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