Jennifer Brandel

Jennifer Brandel is co-founder and CEO of Hearken, which helps organizations design participatory processes to better serve their communities. She is an award-winning journalist, media entrepreneur and civic innovator working to transform how the public engages with news and democracy. Under her leadership, Hearken won “Best Bootstrap Company” at SXSW and the News Media Alliance Accelerator. Brandel received the 2024 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award, the Media Changemaker Prize, and was named one of 30 World-Changing Women in Conscious Business. She was a Columbia Sulzberger Fellow, an RSA Fellow, and a member of the Guild of Future Architects and the National Civic Collaboratory. She founded the audience-first journalism series Curious City at WBEZ Chicago and co-founded Election SOS, a $2M initiative supporting journalists during the 2020 U.S. elections. She co-launched the Advancing Democracy Fellowship to foster culture change in political coverage, and helped lead Democracy Day, the Democracy Toolkit (with the Center for Journalism & Democracy at Howard University), and the 2024 Knight Election Hub. Brandel also co-founded Zebras Unite, a global network reimagining entrepreneurship, and Civic Exchange Chicago, a learning community for civic startups.