From Industry Orphan to Entrepreneur: Building a Career on Your Own Terms

What do you do when the career you need doesn't exist yet?

In this episode, I sit down with Lindsay Green Barber, founder of Impact Architects - a research and strategy firm helping journalism, media, and philanthropy organizations measure what actually matters. 

Lindsay's path here was anything but straight: a PhD, two years of fieldwork in Ecuador, a postdoc fellowship, and a skillset that never quite fit the roles that existed.

So she built her own.

Nearly a decade later, Impact Architects is one of the most respected voices in media impact measurement - and Lindsay is in the middle of a new kind of inflection point. We talk about what it's taken to step into her identity as a founder and leader, why the metrics driving journalism decisions are quietly undermining the industry, and what legacy looks like when you're trying to reimagine an entire sector while also making it to swim class pickup.

You'll Learn

⭐ How to build a career when your skillset doesn't fit existing roles 

⭐ What slow, intentional business growth actually looks like in practice 

⭐ What it takes to step into your identity as a leader 

⭐ How to align your personal growth with your business strategy 

⭐ What community-centered journalism looks like and why it matters 

Key Insights

Entrepreneurship Isn't Always a Calling - Sometimes It's a Solution Lindsay didn't set out to start a company. She set out to do work that mattered and realized the only way to do it was to build something herself.

Clear Is Kind Stepping into leadership means giving your team clarity - about direction, accountability, and vision. Avoiding that isn't humility, it's a disservice.

The Metrics Are the Message When journalism organizations measure success by page views designed for ad sales, they optimize for the wrong thing entirely. Impact measurement asks a harder, more important question.

Timestamps

02:00 Lindsay's non-linear path and why she went straight to grad schoo

04:00 Fieldwork in Ecuador and watching a government silence indigenous voices 

06:00Moving back to the US and rejecting the ivory tower 

07:00 The postdoc fellowship that landed her at CIR 

08:00 Building impact measurement frameworks from scratch 

11:00 How the model started resonating across the industry 

14:00 Seeing an opportunity to build something outside of org life 

15:00 Becoming a founder by accident — the "industry orphan" origin story

20:00 Postpartum, trust, and a turning point for the company 

21:00 Building a team that could hold the work without her 

22:00 Turning 40 and asking: what comes next? 

23:00 When personal growth and business strategy finally come together 

26:00 "What would Kristin do?" — on advisors and hype girls 

27:00 What surprised her most about this phase of growth 

33:00 The broken metrics quietly driving journalism decisions 

37:00 Community listening and how to actually understand your audience

42:00 The CPB funding crisis and what's at stake for local media 

44:00 How do you get people to care before it's gone? 

45:00 What journalism has to do differently to earn trust 

48:00 Legacy: professional, personal, and what her kid thinks of her

Resources and Links

Connect with Lindsay Green Barber on LinkedIn 

Find out more about her work at Impact Architects 

Find host Kristin Belden on LinkedIn or at BeldenStrategies.com 

Sign up for Kristin's new

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi friends, welcome back to Kind of a Big Deal. I'm your host, Kristen Belden, and as always, it's my total pleasure to bring you another amazing woman's story. What happens when you spend two years in Ecuador watching a government use journalism laws to silence communities and come home with a completely different idea of what research is actually for? That's the question at the heart of Lindsay's work. She's the founder of Impact Architects, where she and her team build and measure high-impact strategies for journalism, media, and philanthropy organizations. And she's someone I've had the genuine pleasure of knowing for almost 15 years, back when we were both at the Center for Investigative Reporting, figuring it out in real time. Lindsay didn't set out to be an entrepreneur. She set out to do work that mattered, and eventually realized the only way to do that was to build something that fit her. In our chat, we get into how she went from PhD researcher to founder, what it's taken to actually step into her identity as a leader, and why the metrics we use to measure journalism are quietly breaking it. She's crazy smart, deeply intentional, and fun to hang out with to boot. I think you're gonna love our conversation, so let's get into it. Hi, Lindsay. Hi.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

You too. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Me too. I just realized we're like matching a little bit. Um so Lindsay Green Barber, we worked together many moons ago. It feels like we were like kids back then when I think about who we were and the work we were doing, and it was um so much fun. And I think we were both probably learning a lot that we worked together at the Center for Investigative Reporting, which was and is a national investigative reporting nonprofit. And I was always just so impressed. You'll hear Lindsay is like one of the smartest people that you'll know, but she also has this like steady presence to her and such a care for her work, and she comes at it with such intention. And what's so fun about her though is like she's she's all of that, and we did great work together, and she's so much fun. So it's like you get the benefit of having this like incredibly wickedly smart human that you also want to hang out with. Um, I'm so grateful to still be able to call her a friend all of these years later. We reconnected sometime last year, I think it was. Yeah. And yeah, we can talk about big things like the state of journalism or even the world, and the next minute be laughing about something our crazy kiddos did or some other thing that caught our eye. She's had this really incredible career journey and founded Impact Architects nearly a decade ago, which again makes me feel like we were babies. Um we cannot be held accountable for whatever was going on during that time. But with Impact Architects, she and her team build and measure high impact strategies and research for journalism, media, and philanthropy orgs. And I've had the total pleasure of getting to work with her again in this newest season. She's just a total badass, and I'm so stoked to have you here with us today.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Well, I'm so grateful to be here with you, Krista. And you know, you say we were like babies. We were trying to think back to how long ago it was. And I think I was I was like 29 when we met, and like now well into 40s. And so there is something about it, it's a long time, but it is like many phases of life to know someone and get to just be together on this journey and see each other in different kinds of iterations of ourselves. So I'm really grateful for your friendship and for your support, especially over this past year with um work doing at the company and things. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

It's such a good way of saying it. I feel like when you think about those stages of our lives in particular, right? Like when we first started working together, neither of us had kids. And I had my first kid when we were working together and trying to figure out I was like, what does it mean to be a working mom? And like, how do what do I do here and what's happening? And then there were different iterations of us building businesses and going off on our own. It is kind of crazy when you think about how much can happen. So we're gonna get into it all. But I think I would when I was thinking about you and what like the great pleasure and honor I get in all of this is somebody, even that I've known for this long. I don't actually know a lot of your story. Because it's like we start working together at a certain stage in our lives, and even in its career iteration, like what makes you tick and what makes you you, these are not things that we get to talk about with folks all the time. So when I was reflecting on it, I started to get curious about kind of what came first, the chicken or the egg for you with research. You have this like academic research background, and you are deeply ensconced in the media and journalism world. And so I'm wondering if one came before the other, just from like a where you found your interest um and where you were putting your time in those early years.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Yeah. My career path has definitely not been linear, and it I think it's what I wouldn't have known to try to create because I don't know, I've ended up in a weird space and I have this kind of strange collection of skills at this point. But I have just always really loved learning. I like love to read. I'm just a very curious person. And I went to college and then was like, I don't know what I want to do after. And so I went straight into grad school. And an advisor and undergrad had said, you know, if you just apply to PhD programs, it'll be free. You apply to a master's, it's gonna cost you so much money. And I was like, great, because I have no idea what I want to do. So free sounds good. And that is basically true. And so I went straight into uh a doctoral program. And again, just the idea being great, I'll just keep learning, I'll keep studying, I'm good at it. And there's like a lot wrapped up in there, too, I think, with growing up very middle class. And there was this like, do you want a job that makes money or not? There's like a lot, right? I didn't know what to do and I didn't know what I believed, I think, yet. And then coming through the end of my coursework in grad school, I did field work in Latin America for two years. And so I lived in Ecuador. I was doing research with indigenous communities there to learn more about how they use new information and communication technologies to maintain and create trust-based relationships with their constituent communities, many of whom emigrate to cities. And so you have, you know, like a rural indigenous organization. Their young people are moving to cities. How do they maintain those ties? And this was in 2010 in Ecuador, 2009 to 2011, I think. President Correa was in power there, and they were using all of these laws around journalism to take over all of the media for the state and also to kind of clamp down on these indigenous organizations, saying this communication work you're doing is you trying to play the same role that journalism plays, and you're not accredited. You don't have degrees in journalism. So we're going to shut down your website or your rural radio station or whatever because you're not actually like a journalist. And so I got kind of interested in just, oh, this is fascinating, the way social movements and news and politics are kind of all coming together. And then kind of fast forward, I moved back to the states. And I no longer wanted to go into an academic research situation. I had this taste of what it was like to be out in the world and doing research in a way that could be very applied, where an organization could participate in creating the research questions and the research itself, and then use the information to actually do something differently. And the idea of going back into that like Ivory Tower and publishing behind a paywall and a peer-reviewed journal just like didn't have the same appeal to me anymore. And I was really fortunate that I applied for a postdoc fellowship that is a really unique program through the American Council of Learned Societies that puts recent PhD graduates into public institutions, nonprofits, or at the time government agencies. And that's how I ended up at CIR. So my first two years there were a postdoc fellowship that was fully paid by ACLS. And then I stayed on for another almost two years in a position that CIR created at the end of that fellowship period, realizing there was value to having this kind of work in the house.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

I mean, it's so incredible when you think about you were leading really important work at a time when it was kind of the wild, wild west as it related to what do we even mean when we talk about impact in the media and journalism spaces. I think it's fascinating to think about that now in the state that we're in today. But you know, you were building out this impact framework and evaluation process now used by organizations across the globe. Like, I think there's still iterations of what you built all those years ago that was still in play today, which is incredible. Were you aware of the opportunity for that level of scale at the time that you were building it? Or did it kind of start to like reveal itself as you were digging into the work?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah. When I started out, I had no idea. I mean, I knew nothing about the nonprofit journalism sector or just the journalism sector in the US, really, at all. I didn't totally understand business models. I was learning. And I think that the huge benefit actually was that I didn't know very much. I also didn't know what I didn't know. So my work started just with interviewing everyone at the organization to say, what does impact mean to you? I'm here to measure it, but like I don't even know what it is. And I think slowly, as we started to figure out at CIR, kind of what did we mean when we talk about the potential that journalism can actually change things when we're thinking about impact and we're able to introduce the idea that journalism being used by women in the agricultural industry to hold labor contractors to account, for example, like that that could be impact and we could measure it and kind of talk about it. I think it started to become clear to other peers in the space, as well as some of the funders, that this was much closer to what people understood to be the value of their work than advertising metrics, which is kind of where the conversation was at the time. And so I think as we started to see it resonating with folks and people saying, okay, this makes sense to us, yes, like help us think this through a little bit more. I started to get the sense that we were hitting on something, that there was, in fact, a there there. Um, and you know, I'm always a little bit nervous about like scale and ideas. And people always be like, Can you turn it into a score? Like we're still in our work anytime we're talking about culture change. Because that's to me is what it actually is. That's culture change in an organization. Always be like, technology comes last. Everybody wants like a dashboard as a whatever. And so I always am a little bit nervous. I like to think about the spread of the model, how to make it really accessible, how can people integrate it and actually have culture change in their organization so that they're centering their mission and what it is they're trying to achieve, and recognize that it's probably not going to be like a tech solution. It isn't just going to be one new thing that can fix all the challenges around it. So spread, yes, scale to some extent.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

That's such a good point because I think a lot of times, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're likely coming into the conversation after, you know, some of these legacy organizations or been around for a long time and operating in a specific way, and to not only start to actually have to voice out loud what that impact means, and then what is the back end of tracking it? It's like we can have all of the most beautiful words and the most beautiful dashboards, but if we aren't in the habit of recognizing it, I actually not uh this is gonna be so funny. I'm sure we're gonna be talking about things and be like, oh yeah. Like I remember, I remember even at CIL, it's tricky to get some of the reporters to be like, okay, I'm gonna go in and log this thing. And here's this thing that might feel a little bit more um, I don't know, like it's less straightforward than an award or a right, which all these things we're also tracking, but this idea of social change or the law getting passed, or whatever, like there's so many different ways to think about it. But to know that you have to be the one thinking about intentionally tracking that is not always easy.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Totally. And there's some, I mean, there's so many layers to this, but there is something about even in the nonprofit sector where again, you're not a nonprofit or public media, you're not making revenue dependent upon how many people see an ad on your webpage, right? And yet, because web pages, unique page views, time on page, those are the ways those are like industry standards for understanding is this article good? Is it successful? It's still what we use, even though again, it is for ad sales. It is not for measuring the value of the work, it is for selling advertisements on a web page. And that is somehow like not surfaced enough in some of these conversations and the way that that advertising industry and that business model that no longer works and hasn't for you know 20 plus years is still like driving so much of the industry and how we think about the kinds of stories we're gonna write and how we're gonna present them. It's just to me, it's always a really interesting tension. And that tends not to be what we lead with when we're working with organizations, but where we hope to arrive is an ability to like see things in a different way and then to be able to break out of that a little bit and widen the aperture and say, okay, we have more space to think about what does success mean to us? How are we going to make sure we're actually serving our communities and our audience and our members, our subscribers, our whatever, um, in a way that really serves them as opposed to in a way that serves the advertising industry.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

I know, right? This is and we were talking about we're gonna have to shout out Simone because we were just talking about her before we started recording and her kind of like um t-shirt that we need to create of engagement equals currency. And I think it's so bizarre when you think about when we were first, because I also did not come from the journalism industry, and so to be thrown into it is such a strange and foreign experience because it is a whole other world that you have to get to know and try and understand, and this idea that you can have a relationship with your readers and with your audience. But we had this thing called engagement journalism. It was like, shouldn't that just be what it is though?

unknown 14:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Especially now. Like especially now.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Yeah, I am curious. I mean, you know, that's maybe we won't even go there yet because I think this is gonna be a whole other part, either part two of the conversation or we can go there at some point, but just like in the state of the moment that we find ourselves in and how important it is. But I want to stick with you for a little while. You obviously saw an opportunity though for this to become something that could live outside of what you were building in that time. Did you know that you always wanted to like build something on your own, that you had an entrepreneurial streak in you? Was that something that surprised you about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Yeah, I think it um, no, it is not a thing I knew about myself, and it's still something you're a great entrepreneur. I'm just like, I don't know, it's like a funny label to me because it's not really how I identify. To me, I felt like I don't know, an industry orphan that have no home to go to and a weird skill set that doesn't quite fit in an organization. And then also I'm like, well, I see a role that I would love and that I think I could do really well. But if you look at my resume and it's like, no, you belong somewhere else. And so I think it's just it's been this constant kind of like working across different sectors. Is it research? Is it strategy? Like, where do I fit? And so it felt like my best option was to create something that fit me rather than pigeonhole myself into the rules that existed. And I didn't know if it would work, I didn't know for how long it would work. I think I set out saying, I'm gonna try this for three months and see kind of what comes along. And then it was six months, and then every, you know, three months I'd have a panic attack. Like, am I making enough? Can I pay rent? You know, like what's happening? And at some point, saying, okay, this is good. I think keep doing this and being able to be more intentional, but I'm not just taking whatever comes along, but really starting to say, what kinds of projects do I want to work on? What is the value that I think I can bring to the work that might be different sometimes than what people are looking for, also, and then slowly brought on additional capacity. So as I got more projects, I brought on my now colleague of, I don't know, seven years or something, Eric, who had the same postdoc fellowship that I had, and then brought in one other person, and now we're only a team of four full-time. So it's grown like very slowly and very intentionally and conservatively over time, which again is where entrepreneur feels funny. So it's like, well, if I were an entrepreneur, wouldn't I hire a whole team and we'd have like marketing and do a whole thing, you know? And it's like, ah um exactly.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

But no, I know. But I think it's so it's such an important reframe for folks that are considering building on their own. Because I do think there is a bit of this strange narrative out there that it's like to be entrepreneurial, you have to want to be Elon Musk or something. But the reality is there's all this research coming out now about women in particular coming out of the workforce and saying, you know what? I want to build something to exactly to what you just said, like create something that fits me, not me trying to fit into something that there really isn't a space that's been created for already. And what it requires to do that is, I think, a mindset. We talked about this before. This kind of um maybe not appetite for, but an ability to navigate the unknown and some risk taking, right? All of that, I think, is what creates an entrepreneurial journey. It's you're building something out of nothing, essentially, and you're doing it with thoughtfulness and care. And you've created support around you that can also help further that mission now. It's not like, well, I'm gonna hire because that's what you're supposed to do. You're hiring when you actually recognize that you need that extended support. So you might not identify that way, but I hate to tell you.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

No, and I think that's been part of my work, especially of late, is saying, okay, how can I step into this more? And it'd be not just like I've kind of lucked into a bunch of things, which I have been really fortunate and had the fellowship. That's lucky to some extent. I mean, I think at a strong application, but it always comes down to at least some degree of luck. And being right place, right time. It was like media impact at the moment that that was kind of poised to become a sector in and of itself. And now saying, okay, what does the level up look like? How do we continue to grow? And that might just mean more infrastructure, like having some more benefits for the team. It doesn't necessarily mean, again, getting bigger, but getting stronger, having our roots feel like they're just a little bit more stable so that we can continue to do the work and do the work that feels the most important. And I hate using the word impact to describe our work, but like trying to really be intentional about the work we're doing so that it can have its own impact in some way. It's felt like a bit of like a leveling up kind of moment for our team and for the organization, which is, I think, get getting a little bit more comfortable being like, I am in fact a business owner. This is my business. I can be entrepreneurial, we can create a new blueprints product. I'm like, ah, we have a product. What are we doing? And it's like, no, it's good. Other people wanted it. And it's like, okay, we can do this.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

I mean, it's interesting because we've reconnected at this moment where you've built this container that has served you until now. I like to look at it almost like we have to repot the plant every once in a while. Like, okay, the roots have outgrown. It is time we don't need to throw the plant out, it just needs a bigger pot to allow it to continue to grow. And we can have to like tend to it maybe a little bit differently because we gotta think about it a little bit differently. But what maybe not what feels different because you've kind of already articulated that, but maybe what were some of the signs for you that you knew it was time to start thinking a little bit more about what the next season of the business was gonna look like.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Yeah. Um I think there are a few things happening at the same time. I have a three and a half year old, and so for that first year, and I've said this to my team, so I'm not divulging anything they don't already know, but in the haze of postpartum and figuring out how to be a parent, I don't really remember that year. And the company kept doing fine. It was like great. The team did great work. And there was something about that experience where I was able to find a different kind of trust in that container and in the team that we'd built, and just in our approach to the work. And it became it, it was a force function where it was less about me and the personal relationships I had with clients and with the partners that we work with, and became more about the work and the team. And that realization. And then, okay, how do I serve that? How do I ensure that the team has the space they need to then grow? Like it was just a real shift in my mind, I think. And an Enneagram nine self-pres. So there's something about also just in that reaching a point where like we're safe. I can stop just we're doing whatever project comes along to make sure we can make payroll and it be like, no, we're good, we're solid. I love this repotting, the plant thing. But it was like we actually have the space and I feel confident enough in the lines of business we have coming in that we can step back and just think about growing. And then I think there's something for me around that same time. I was turning 40 and it was like, okay, so I've done a lot in my career already. And I what do I want to do next? Where do I go from here? Do I want to keep just doing hamster wheel feeling projects sometimes? Or what's bigger? What comes next? And I think all of those things together turned it into, okay, how do I make sure that the company is serving the team in the best way possible? And how do I step into a leadership role more fully, where there's a vision that's fleshed out, and it is about my own personal growth and professional trajectory. And it's about the organization's role in the space, and how can we take up the space that I think we've like earned at this point where I felt like I wasn't sure we were there yet for a while. I'm like, yes, we can be confident and step into that. So yeah, all that kind of taken together.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

You hit on the thing that I have decided I am like hell-bent on for people, which is if your business is growing or evolving, like so are you as a human in some way, shape, or form. And I think we tend to biprecate these two things. It's like you've got your business strategy over here, and then you've got your personal growth over here. And I think the reality, especially, and this is not a gendered thing, I think because my lens is specific to women, because that's who I work with, and this need to pull these two things back together so that we're not forgetting ourselves and the lives that we actually want to have in service of a business that we want. Like, how do these two things come together in a way that they are supporting each other, not like fighting against each other? Do you feel like as you are looking at this next season for the business, that you have your eye on that a bit? What you're thinking about, not just for the business, but also what you want your life to look like.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yeah, definitely. And some of that in part the work that we did together that was so helpful for me to create this space for me to step back and say, where's the company headed? And where am I headed? And is it the same place? Like how do we go track and get into? Yeah, like how do we make it be supportive? And you know, there are things I wanted to do for so long that it's like, no, I have to do it now, write a book that's been since grad school. It's the thing. I haven't. Yeah. And well, and it became like so how that's what I want to do. And I feel like I have enough to say now and enough experience as well as the research to feed it. So, what does that actually look like? How do I make the plan? And how can the company both support that work and can me taking the space I need for that be okay? So, what additional kind of capacity do we need internally at the company so that I can create that space? And part of it was seeking out and finding the writing partner. I work best when I have accountability with other people. So, like, why wouldn't I do that for this too? You know, some of it's like just realizing what my own conditions are for my best work and then trying to build around that. And then having a kid really changes things. I want to be able to do pickup and go to swim class today. And does that mean I'm gonna have to work at night? Maybe, and that's okay. And so, how do we, as a team, then create structures where we understand people have different circumstances, people's work schedules are gonna look a little bit different. And so that I think you talk about rather than work-life balance, work-life harmony. And I that is something I come back to as an idea often, carrying Kristen in my mind.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

God bless you.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

No, I love it. You're the little angel on my shoulder.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

Like, I'm gonna have some fun.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, no, but I so appreciate that voice being like, you know, it's about her being not balanced. Okay, you can figure it out. I mean, I always ask myself, like, what would Kristen do?

SPEAKER_03 26:45

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

And then like making a difficult decision. I'm like, well, if I told Kristen, what would she say? Like, well, it seems like it's pretty clear what I should be doing now. So thank you for. I just record the time so you can invoice me for yeah, you don't even need an AI bot. I've already got you.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Um I'm gonna be your hype girl forever. Like, how can we create a Kristen in your pocket so it can just be like, you're awesome. Yeah, it's amazing. It's like best. I love it. Hey, quick pause before we get back into it. If you're listening to conversations like this one and something keeps nudging you, like I know I'm at some kind of turning point, I just can't quite see it clearly yet. That's actually exactly what I do. I work with women leaders who are in the middle of something: a career shift, a business that's ready to evolve, a moment where what got you here just isn't cutting it anymore. Sometimes what you need most isn't a whole program or a big engagement. You just need a few hours with someone who can help you see what you're too close to see yourself. That's the clarity session. It's a focused, one-on-one conversation where we dig into where you are, where you want to go, and what's actually in the way. You walk away with real direction, not a list of homework, but genuine clarity on your next move. If that sounds like what you need right now, I'd love to talk. You can find all the details at Beldenstrategies.com slash clarity. Okay, let's get back into it. What has surprised you about this phase of growth that maybe people don't talk about as often? Is there anything, not just for you as a person, but just as you're watching, you know, you're watching this happen as you're making it happen. You're in an industry that is constantly in a changing environment. You picked an industry that is never gonna be like, and this is what it is. And especially as we're watching AI come our way, or it's here, I shouldn't say come our way, but like particularly about this phase, are there things that you think would be helpful for other people to hear that might be navigating a similar moment that might have surprised you that folks don't talk about as much?

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Yeah. Um so we work in consulting, which I think one of the challenges there is just uncertainty all of the time. I don't have total control over, like we're not selling a product for the most part. I don't have total control over when projects are gonna come in. As they're coming in, I can work on the timeline. So I think that to me feels like a constant challenge with thinking about how to grow responsibly, when can we actually bring on more capacity? Again, I tend towards quite conservative there. And, you know, I want people to have the support they need. So that to me feels like a constant struggle. And then just being confident enough. We've been around for almost 10 years, projects come in. So I just need to be okay counting on that. Um, I have like the opposite of a VC mindset. It's like whatever the opposite is, is what I am. So that can be a real challenge to me, though, because it's it. I'm in some cases, I'm almost under counting, like I'm underselling. It can come across, I think, to my team sometimes as like I'm not confident that we're going to have the work that we need. So having that confidence, just investing in the team as we need to and being able to grow has been tricky. And I think I'm getting better at it, but it's still always something I feel a little bit nervous about. And then there is for me, especially with a sometimes feels harder with a really small team. It can be challenging for me just to fully step into I am the leader, I'm the founder of this organization, and that means that I'm like the boss. That's another right there with entrepreneur. I'm like, I don't want to really talk about that. I'm the boss, or that like technically people are my direct reports or I don't know, it feels weird. But that I more and more recognize how that is not only in disservice to myself and the work that I've done, but to my team members, that having clarity, having clear lines of accountability and deliverables and timelines is actually really valuable to people and want that clarity. And that if I'm just kind of wishy-washy or like, oh, we don't work, whatever, that's not helpful to people. So that is more on my, I think my own personality and personal growth trajectory, but just trying to step into that and I don't know, I need a different word, but get more comfortable with like that is my job. My job is to be the leader and to ensure that everyone has a clear sense of where we're headed, what people are responsible for to make sure we're getting there together. Um clear as kind, as they say, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Yes, like it's such an interesting, I mean, it really I think lends that lends itself well to it. I hear you on the personality thing, but I also think this is a truth for so many women that have built really impactful, important, successful things that there's still a bit of like a bristle against, like, well, no, uh no, it's the work, it's not me. There's this interesting tension between owning it, kind of a big deal, right? Like the whole point of these conversations is started with this idea that women are building really important, impactual things, and our lives are a big deal. And it's not to say I want to see everybody turn into like an egomaniac asshole, but it is a I do want women to feel more empowered to say, like, yeah, but I built this shit. Look at what I've done. It's kind of wild when you look at you've had this amazing, even if it hasn't been a straight line, every step built to the moment that you're at. And no one else gets to claim that story. You do. And it's like, how do we do that in a way that's also leaning with empathy and an awareness of, you know, not being a dick?

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Yeah, exactly. It's like, I know what I don't want to be and who I don't want to become. And it's then figuring out what it is you do want to be. And I will admit, I spent very little time in an organization that wasn't my own or academic. And academia is like its whole, its own, just it's a mess. People don't know how to lead both. I shouldn't say this is a general overstatement, but it is not a place that is um renowned for its empathy and constructive working environments and clear communication. And I feel fortunate now. I get to, we get to work with so many different people and organizations, and we get exposure to all different kinds of organizational cultures and big teams and small teams and across different sectors. And so I can do a lot of learning about what is it like? When do I see something that I see a leader doing? I'm like, I'm gonna borrow that, or you know, that seems good. But the reality is I spent less than four years in an actual organization that I wasn't running. There's not that much time and a lot of gaps, a lot to learn. And I like read lots of books because that's how I learn best. But it is still, I acknowledge that is a gap that I have. I just didn't haven't worked inside of that many organizations.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Yeah, gap, sure, it could be gap, but also you then get to define I think Shonda Rhines talks about this a lot. She never had clear mentorship in her industry. So her mentors became her books. And what she learned from others was in their words. And so I think we seek these things out in whatever way we can. And you also didn't didn't learn all the bad habits of some of the folks that you know we call leaders, and you get to shape that, which is really amazing. Um I'd love to hear more about your time in Ecuador and how that might be informing how you're leading today, and just how did it shape how you kind of see the industry? Even if back then you might not have been able to frame it in that way. But knowing now what you know and thinking back to those years, how has that kind of shaped or informed the way you look at the work today?

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Yeah, you know, I don't remember that much about my dissertation at this point. However, some of the key things that I learned there were that organizations and to some extent leaders, but really just organizations because they're quite communally driven, that were able to take a new or interesting technology. And by that I mean it could be radio in one place, it could be a WordPress website, it could be different things, but could take it and then kind of turn it on its head and use it in a way that really um channeled the communication forms that their community members would recognize as authentic, would recognize as trustworthy, would recognize as their own, were really successful. And that to some extent feels like a duh thing to say. But it's it certainly wasn't at the time in that academic space what people were thinking about and talking about. And then there was like all these um international NGOs that were there that were creating websites and doing the stuff that felt kind of, I don't know, it it had the opposite effects. You could have two organizations, one with a website, one with a website. The way that they, the kinds of content, the things they did with them, had two totally disparate effects. In one, it was complete alienation of the people they're trying to connect with. And in the other, it builds this really strong connection. And I think about it all of the time now, because I mean, not now, all of the time with the news and information space, because it was fascinating to me to end up inside of a newsroom where it was like that was not the assumption. The assumption was and continues to be for a lot of media companies. You put out big new shiny things and you like are always on the leading edge of innovation, and you're doing really cool interactives on your website with data or whatever, which can be fine, but without a real sense for whom are you trying to reach with this information? And what is the way that they are going to engage with it and trust the information and it's going to be recognizable. And it's where, like, that's why a TikTok influencer or whatever where they're making. And that's not to say that every news organization needs to get a TikTok channel or turn one of their journalists into an influencer, have a partnership, but it's that idea of really interrogating. You know, why are you so committed to this one format? Not the process, not the generating information, not the sourcing, not the fact-checking. That's all important. But why are we, as an industry, as a journalism industry, so wedded to particular platforms and mediums? And why does it have to be a written text article? There's like a lot wrapped up in there, and it doesn't always center and respect your audience's preferences and expectations and how people are most comfortable getting information. And that's again something learned there and very much saw that to me feels kind of like if there were a string through the work that we do, that is the the string. And this is not to say it's across the board because there are great organizations doing such cool stuff now. Um but like as an industry, it's still, you know, when you look at J School curriculum, you're learning maybe multimedia production, you're learning how to write text articles. You're not learning how to say what information does our community need, and how are they most comfortable consuming information? What sources do they trust the most? And how do we get the information to them through those trusted channels? That's not the methodology that's being uh taught.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Do you think people even like I'm so curious about this because sometimes we see these kind of landscape analysis projects happen where it's like we're reaching into the community and saying, what is it that you want and what is it that you need? Do you think that it tends to skew it just based on who's actually responding to those questions? I wonder about that sometimes. I mean, I think you're gonna reach maybe the people that always are gonna answer these surveys. Is there a way to get a layer deeper into or does it take time to build the trust over the span of some years as a media organization, just being in the community that you can't get by surveying?

SPEAKER_01 39:34

I think it's probably a both and. So we did some work with Davis Media Access in YOLO County and did an ecosystem scan there that looked at all kinds of publicly available data, but then we did a community survey. In that case, it was sent out through DMA's like vast network. The woman, Autumn Lave-Renault, who's the executive director there, is just like the most networked person I have ever fed, knows everyone in the county. So we were able to get a really high number of responses to the survey. And then layered together with that, there had been the county health department had done its own survey of agricultural workers in Spanish that wasn't specifically about information needs and news, but it did have questions about where do people get information about health issues. So we could bring that in. And then there were community listening sessions. So trying to have different points of touch points, like and then interviews so that you're getting um different kinds of information. And then, yes, if you are a media company that's trying to do this, I think there's a lot of work to build relationships over time on the ground in community. Listening Post Collective is another organization that does a lot of that community listening work and then works with sometimes pre-existing, sometimes new uh information providers to develop like strategies to better meet community information needs. And their work, I think, is really exemplary in that space of building relationship. So, yeah, I think there are different models up there, but it's it to me, it's a yes and how can you try to understand the whole as much as you can, often through something in your survey, and then how can you go deeper through community listening, focus groups, interviews, et cetera, to make sure you're really getting deep into the nitty-gritty questions that people have.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Yeah. On that, I would love to hear what are you as you look at the media landscape and all of the institutional knowledge you've built up at this point. What are you most excited about as we look at the future of the state of media? Like, where do you see the biggest opportunity for growth there?

SPEAKER_01 41:45

There are some organizations that are doing such interesting work, I think, documented, which is based in New York, is one that I point to all of the time. They do phenomenal reporting, investigative, explanatory. They've won awards for their journalism. And they have distinct distribution strategies for the Spanish-speaking immigrant community in New York, for the Haitian Creole speaking community, and for a Mandarin Chinese speaking community that looks like WhatsApp newsletters, WhatsApp direct engagement, WeChat. So, like they're one to me where they're just again doing what is so important that journalism does really well. And then the parts that can be changed to better serve community are being changed and they're doing what folks need. And so I see models like that, and they now have a training program for other news organizations as a huge bright spot, and it's something I'm really excited to see, and where also that kind of direct community outreach can be really labor-intensive. And so I don't know where I stand on AI. And there are things like this where I think as folks are developing direct to audience strategies, they're going to be able to use AI to allow them to do more of that based on their own reporting and content and in a way that feels like it is in line with their values and their ethics and their approaches to the work. And so that feels like an area of opportunity to me.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

Um totally. Anything that you see as like the giant red glaring alarm of if we don't get just figured out, we are even more at risk of losing more and more of one of the essential pillars of our democracy.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

There are a few of those. I mean, one of them is on the public media side, but the rescission and the closure of CPB, the uh revenue stream for I don't know, I public media company has great data and information about this. Check it out if you want to know more. But it's something like 30% of stations relied on CPB funding to such an extent that. They're like at risk of closure. The upside is dodging.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

No, it's okay. Okay, she's got enough. Mine has not decided to be a garden dog in this conversation, is all she's got.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

The fact that they're that they've lost all this money. There are philanthropic funders that have come in called the bridge fund to help generate some short-term resources to shore those stations up. But what's going to happen in the long term to me feels like a huge question. And then just given the current administration, what happens if those stations aren't funded, if they if they can't keep the lights on their frequency, so the radio frequency, the TV frequency, like the actual spectrum, um would either be auctioned, which requires FCC approval, or would just kind of go back to the FCC. So it becomes under federal government control, which just again, given the current administration, feels like a risky play. Like so that feels like something that I am like very concerned about. Also, there's lots of work happening in that space to try to make sure that those frequencies remain public domain and serving local communities across the country. But it is something I'm really concerned about. And then together with that, I just think we see the administration using FCC roles and other policy in all kinds of ways to essentially crack down on broadcast media in particular, but also on individual reporters. Press freedom issues in our country feel like a real concern at the moment. And there are so many concerns going on that it's hard for it to get, I think, a ton of time and attention, but it is something that we would be remiss to not talk about.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

Yeah, I know. It makes me nervous. I mean, nervous is probably an understatement, I think. It feels like we've been in this fight for so long around getting people to care about the fact that like if you don't have a local news outlet in your community, just immediately you see the data shows how much worse off the community becomes. And I think that folks maybe don't have a full there's so much distrust at this point, and there's so much disillusionment around where do I go to find my trusted source? Do I even, you know, believe that the New York Times employs like actual journalists, right? Like these are like questions that people are actually asking, right? And I take it, I think I maybe take for granted that I was in the journalism industry for long enough to have built that trust on my own just by being in a relationship with journalists and knowing and seeing what they did to put their energy towards these things that matter so much. And so I wonder about that. How do you get people to care about it?

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Yeah. And and I think people will and do care when it's gone.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Well, exactly. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

I want to know to get to that point.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

I know. I know. And as an industry, we have to step being like, but we're so important and be like, we're so important. And how can we do our job better? How can we update our work so that it fits into 2026 and people's expectations about information and their preferences and really respects people and meets them where they are. And I think that's something that the journalism industry hasn't, that's not where we've excelled in the past.

SPEAKER_02 47:27

And so I love that. Two more questions about you, and I'll make it quick because I know we've got to wrap. Um, I'll make it as quick as I can. These are two big questions, but I think I want to lead into the last one with this, which is um, this is a question that was asked of me at a networking event sometime last year, and I thought it was so great. So now I ask it every once in a while. What is something from your past that has shaped who you are as a leader today that would not wind up in your bio or your resume?

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Oh my. Well, I share about Ecuador. That is something it shows up as a line that I spend time there, but that has certainly shaped who I am and how I show up at work a lot. Um, when I was in the short spells that I had inside of an actual organization, I think there is something about the I was given so much opportunity in Leeway to try new things and test new things in a way that felt pretty low risk. I was on a fellowship, I had two years to try that I think that gave me a kind of like confidence and ability to think about how to test new things in a way that felt pretty lightweight, and also I had no budget to do anything. So, how to be like scrappy. And so there is something now where the idea of a big problem and how do you solve it with like no money doesn't actually feel that daunting or scary. Yeah, yeah, there's something where it's like, yeah, we can figure it out, we can piece it together, and it can kind of be, it'll probably be fine. I think people get that working in nonprofits a lot, actually. But I feel fortunate that that was my first real work experience that I was forced to do that, but it wouldn't show up in that way on a resume.

SPEAKER_02 49:24

Yeah, yes. And I think another notch in your entrepreneurial belt. It's real though. Like, how do you solve these big complex issues with a hope and a prayer sometimes, but also with not a ton of resources behind it?

SPEAKER_01 49:41

So that makes sense. One with great colleagues like Kristen could somehow help create an event out of nothing. It was like stone soup.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

It was so fun though. I was like, oh my gosh, we didn't know better. How many times we got thrown into the deep end with no life raft whatsoever? And it was like, figure it out. Yeah. And I was like, really? You sure about that? I was like, because this is just how it is in the real world. I don't know. There were so many meetings I was in that I'm like, literally no business being in this meeting. I don't even know what I'm talking to you. Like, what? Um with that, I think, you know, all of these conversations in my mind are about what is the legacy that we're building toward. And with this thought around it, that it is this beautiful, bright thing that we get to think about every day, not the heaviness of like, what's the legacy that you're going to leave? But what does building a legacy mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 50:35

I think there are two pieces of it to me. There's something about professionally, I have become more and more comfortable and think more and more about how is the work that we're doing actually moving in an industry? What is the role that we're playing in the reinvention or the reimagining of the information sector? And this is collaborative work, it is movement work, um, and thinking really concretely, we have a specific role to play. What can we do? How can we kind of catalyze that reimagining and that redefining? And then both trying to work towards that very strategically and being more comfortable saying, like, yes, we have a role to play. We're here to show up and to do that work. Um, and that we have a perspective in what direction it's headed. So that is like one piece of it. And then I think there's the like personal legacy, I think every day now in a different way about does this work matter? Um, is this work more important than going to my kids' swim class? Is this work more important? And you know, it's not, they're not the same, but there is something different in wanting to show up as a person all of the time that my kid is going to like like and be proud of and be like, yeah, my mom's cool. And I think that's that's a different uh I was like never gonna have kids, so it's not a thing I had thought about until I changed my mind. That's what it's like a whole different thing to think about.

SPEAKER_02 52:05

No, it's terrifying, isn't it? Yeah, it sure is. Well, you're amazing, and I just am so grateful to honestly like the fact that I get to call you a friend, it just makes me so happy. And I love hearing about the way you're thinking about the world right now. I know so many folks are gonna get so much benefit from it.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Thank you so much, Kristen. This has been so much fun and just appreciate you always. All right, we'll see you soon. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

Thank you so much for listening and spending some of your time with me here. I hope our conversation sparked some new ideas for you. If you enjoyed the episode, please make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's next. And if you're ready for even more tools and stories, head on over to beldenstrategies.com slash newsletter. I share fresh insights, stories, and tools for women leaders every week. Until next time, keep building, keep evolving, and remember that you are kind of a big deal.