The Online News Association is excited to announce two internal promotions: Trevor Knoblich assumes the role of Chief Knowledge Officer, while Jessica Strelitz assumes the role of Chief Strategic Partnerships Officer.
Trevor is now responsible for overseeing ONA’s year-round education and training portfolio. He will also oversee how we approach our internal education, including enhancing organizational operations and procedures.
In her new role, Jessica works closely with ONA Executive Director/CEO Irving Washington to oversee all revenue and partnerships across the organization. She will focus on optimizing how community members collaborate with ONA, whether as members, funders, sponsors, conference attendees, recruiters or donors.
These promotions reflect our commitment to grow our impact on digital journalism — from local newsrooms and major media to educators, early-career talent, news product innovators and more. Trevor will be a great resource to the team as we connect our training topics across all programs and activities, and Jessica’s vision and expertise will ensure we have the resources to serve our community’s needs as the industry evolves.
Trevor has been instrumental to ONA’s program growth over the past five years. He joined ONA in 2014 as Digital Director and oversaw the expansion of our digital presence and tools. Then as Head of Programs and Events, he introduced new learning opportunities at the annual conference, diversified the speaking talent and oversaw the expansion of the Online Journalism Awards. He was also a key collaborator in designing tailored programming for specific groups within our global community, including the Women’s Leadership Accelerator, ONA Insights and the Journalism Mentorship Collaborative. Internally, Trevor has rolled out key project management tools and created new hiring and onboarding processes for our growing team.
Jessica has contributed tremendous effort to expand ONA’s reach since she joined the organization in 2013. She has taken our strategic partnerships from 40 to over 200 partners and more than doubled sponsor revenue that we reinvest into free programming for our community year-round. While doing so, she has developed new opportunities for partners to work with ONA, including outreach through our newsletters, a robust job board and creative engagement for sponsors and exhibitors at our annual conference.
Both Trevor and Jessica remain part of the leadership team and will continue to report to the Executive Director/CEO.