Women’s Leadership Accelerator

The Women’s Leadership Accelerator is a yearlong intensive program that supercharges the leadership and management skills of women who are pushing digital innovation. Each year we welcome a cohort of women representing a range of backgrounds, expertise and newsrooms around the globe.

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The Women’s Leadership Accelerator offers an intensive program of mentoring, discussion and learning from some of the top minds in digital media. Participants work closely with mentors on challenges unique to their careers and also receive support and coaching from ONA throughout the year.

Applications for the next cohort will open in early 2024. Subscribe to the ONA Weekly newsletter for updates about this program and other opportunities from ONA.

The 2023 Women’s Leadership Accelerator is supported by lead funder Dow Jones Foundation, with additional funding from the Inasmuch Foundation, The American Press Institute, The New York Times, Storyful — in honor of Mandy Jenkins, who devoted her life to uplifting and empowering women in journalism — and the Tiffany Shackelford Foundation.

We seek funders for each new program and have several opportunities to support this program as well as our other year-round programs for women in digital news leadership. To learn more about supporting the programs, contact Hanaa Rifaey, Head of Strategic Partnerships, at hanaa@journalists.org.

The application period for the 2022 Cohort is now closed.

Once the selection process is complete, 26 women leaders in digital journalism will receive yearlong support to level up their careers.

See Program Requirements

The Women's Leadership program began in 2015 and has evolved to be a year-long cohort experience. Learn about the past programs, including previous cohorts, speakers, sponsors and programming.