October 13, 2021

Introducing our Newsroom Culture and Careers Department

Meet the leaders who will usher in a new era of career development and newsroom culture. Read more in this note from Carolyn Ryan.

Colleagues,

We pledged earlier this year that we would invest in our workplace culture and in helping you develop your career. The Times, which has set the standard for the industry in so many areas, will now lead in creating a nurturing, enriching and equitable environment for our staff to do its best work.

Our central aim is to demystify how people thrive and get ahead at The Times, and help more people do so. That’s why today we are announcing the creation of our Newsroom Culture and Careers department, and the appointment of an extraordinary group of leaders to oversee it with me.

We believe newsroom staffers should not have to struggle to get career advice and guidance, build new skills or gain new experiences. And in recent months, we have been rolling out new programs to underscore that, from our editing residency to the newsroom embed program to the journalism corps.

Our mission is to create the most effective, accessible and well-utilized career and culture department in the industry.

This team will work in close partnership with our colleagues in Human Resources. The H.R. team embedded in the newsroom continues to grow, and will be adding more resources to work alongside us and collaborate with us on this important work, bringing invaluable guidance and expertise.

Please join me in congratulating these talented leaders on their appointments and promotions.

Vivian Toy

Director of Career Mobility

Vivian, a creative, intelligent and generous journalist who has mentored many Times staffers, will take on a critical new leadership role: helping newsroom employees navigate their careers at The Times.

Vivian has been at The Times for 26 years, first as a reporter on Metro and Real Estate and, since 2015, as real estate editor. She turned the real estate feature “The Hunt” into a popular interactive game for readers, and it is now headed to television.

Keiko Morris

Director of Journalism Recruiting

Keiko, who comes to us from The Wall Street Journal, will lead our effort to bring the best journalists in the world to The Times. Andrés Martínez, a Journal alum now on our Live team, described Keiko as “a force,” whom people are drawn to for her intelligence and infectious spirit.

At The Journal, Keiko focused on recruiting, career development and newsroom culture. Prior to that, she was a commercial real estate reporter, writing about the economy and changes in the way we live and work through the lens of real estate.

Previously, Keiko reported at Newsday and The Seattle Times. She graduated from Harvard and received a master’s in journalism from Stanford.  She starts Nov. 8.

Charo Henríquez

Editor, Newsroom Development and Support

Charo, an inspiring and thoughtful leader who has helped the newsroom embrace change of all kinds, will lead the effort to help desks develop and achieve their diversity, equity and inclusion goals. Charo and her team, who this year created the newsroom embed program, will also develop training to help our managers build a workplace culture that supports our journalists. (NDS under Charo will continue its broader work on skills development, its collaboration with Product and its planning and workflow projects.)

Charo has been the head of NDS since July 2020 and prior to that was a senior editor for strategy on the team. Before coming to The Times, Charo was the executive editor at People en Español and before that the innovation editor for Primera Hora and El Nuevo Día in Puerto Rico.

Ted Kim

Director of Career Programs

Ted, a visionary leader who brings fresh thinking and boundless energy to our career development efforts, is being named director of Career Programs. Ted and his team will focus on building the just-announced New York Times Corps, which will tap Times journalists to mentor college students pursuing journalism. His team will also continue to run the best-in-the-industry newsroom fellowship and the newly created editing residency.

Ted began his Times career on the News Desk and later worked on the Digital Transition team. Earlier, Ted reported for newspapers in Maryland, Indianapolis and Dallas. One time, at the All-Star game, LeBron James bounded out of the locker room and ran directly into Ted, who was covering the event. Unrelatedly, Ted eventually switched to digital production and strategy as mobile editor at The Washington Post.

Charlotte Behrendt

Director of Policy and Internal Investigations

A devoted, seasoned and insightful leader, Charlotte is being promoted to director of Policy and Internal Investigations. In this role, she will guide the newsroom in navigating some of its most critical and sensitive issues, leading internal investigations and helping us to create and implement workplace policies.

Charlotte joined The Times in 2001, after working as a labor and employment lawyer at Proskauer. In 2003, she came to the newsroom, where she advised department heads and masthead editors, handled newsroom investigations, evaluations and other areas. In May 2018, she was promoted to the masthead as an associate managing editor.

Sharon Chan

Deputy, Newsroom Culture and Careers Department

Sharon will join the department as my deputy, putting into action much of the blueprint for a better workplace culture developed in our D.E.I. Action Plan. Sharon is that rare combination of strategic and journalistic thinker: She can see the big picture and hold fast to our essential principles even as she is driving change.

Sharon joined The Times in 2019 as vice president of Philanthropy. She built partnerships with foundations and nonprofits to fund the Headway initiative and the Disability Journalism Fellowship.

Prior to that, at The Seattle Times, she oversaw the product and data teams and spearheaded philanthropic funding of journalism. She also spent 15 years as a journalist there, first as a reporter and later as a deputy managing editor and op-ed editor.

Sharon has spent her pandemic learning how to produce music and is most excited about winning the 2021 AAJA Convention karaoke competition without singing a single note.

The creation of this new team has the strong support of our colleagues in HR, especially Elise Baron, executive director and head of HR for the newsroom, who has been a key driver of change and a great resource for our journalists. Along with her team, Elise will serve as a core, senior member of this new team as well.

Carolyn

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