Emma Gilchrist is co-founder, editor-in-chief and executive director of The Narwhal, an award-winning non-profit online magazine that publishes in-depth and investigative journalism about Canada’s natural world. The Narwhal is a pioneer of non-profit journalism in Canada and is supported by nearly 5,000 monthly members. Since launching four years ago, the organization has grown from two staff to 22. In March 2021, The Narwhal became Canada’s first English-language registered journalism organization, which allows the organization to issue donation tax receipts. @reporteremma

Chuck Lapointe is the co-founder and CEO of Narcity Media, an online media company and publisher that focuses on local news and travel content. Narcity Media owns and operates NARCITY.com and MTLBLOG.com. Chuck spearheaded the sponsored content movement in Canada in 2013 and has a mission to connect everyone to their city, through experience and content. Prior to building Narcity, he worked four years as Production Director at Ressac, a digital strategy consulting firm in Montreal. @charleslapointe

Farhan Mohamed is the co-founder and CEO of Overstory Media Group, a media company focused on rebuilding community news. Since launching the company in May 2021, Overstory employs nearly 50 people full-time across Canada and has grown to more than a dozen community publications, including Capital Daily, The Coast, Fraser Valley Current, and Vancouver Tech Journal. Prior to Overstory, Farhan was the editor-in-chief and co-owner at Daily Hive, helping to grow the company from a passion project to a fully functioning newsroom across Canada. Under his direction, the publication grew from 200,000 monthly unique visitors to over 6.5 million. @farhanmohamed

Brandi Schier grew up on Treaty Six territory in the prairies before moving to British Columbia’s Interior to pursue journalism (and snowboarding). She now lives and works on the unceded and traditional territory of the Secwépemc peoples and is dedicated to living and learning new journalism models to better serve communities. As the new CEO of Discourse Community Publishing, Brandi leads a growing network of independent news outlets including The Discourse, IndigiNews, Sun Peaks Independent News and The Wren, where she works to bring a solutions-based outlook to news entrepreneurism. @brandischier

Erin Millar is the CEO of Indiegraf, a network of small and startup community news outlets pooling technology, capital, audience and revenue resources to accelerate their growth. Before creating Indiegraf, Erin founded The Discourse, where she led an award-winning journalism team and developed a successful business model for in-depth local news. She also contributed to founding Press Forward, an association of independent Canadian publishers, and C4C Canada, a charity dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices. @erinmillar