Prof. Dr. Alexandra Borchardt

Journalist, Advisor, Researcher, Author, Germany / Member of WAN-IFRA Expert Panel

Meet Alexandra Borchardt, a highly experienced senior journalist, book author, lecturer, and independent media advisor. She is a member of the WAN-IFRA Expert Panel (click here to learn more), a distinguished network of experts who offer impartial advice on a range of strategic digital business and organizational issues. Alexandra’s expertise areas include: Managing digital change: strategy and culture, Leadership development, Climate journalism strategy.

Alexandra is a coach of the Table Stakes Europe Programme and heads the Journalism Innovators Program of the Hamburg Media School, and is affiliated with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford as a Senior Research Associate after having served as Director of Leadership Programmes until
2019.

Prior to this she was managing editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), Germany’s leading quality daily. Alexandra is the lead author of the 2021/22 EBU News Report “What’s Next? Public Service Journalism in the Age of Distraction, Opinion, and Information Abundance”, published by the European Broadcasting Union in November 2021.

As an honorary Professor for Leadership and Digital Transformation at TU Munich’s TUM School of Management Alexandra regularly teaches “Leadership and Strategy in the 21st Century”. Until September 2021 she was professor for media transformation and co-head of the master’s program in cultural journalism at the University of the Arts in Berlin. She gives keynotes on digital transformation and the media and publishes commentaries, essays, and a monthly column for the industry publication Medieninsider. She is the author of Mehr Wahrheit wagen – Warum die Demokratie einen starken Journalismus braucht (Dare more truth – Why democracy needs strong journalism), Dudenverlag, 2020, and Mensch 4.0 – Frei bleiben in einer digitalen Welt (Freedom in a digital world), Random House, 2018.

She is a member of the Committee for Editorial Independence at Czech publishing house Economia and a board member of Constructive Foundation in Aarhus. At the Council of Europe she served as a rapporteur on the Committee of Experts on Freedom of Expression and Digital Technologies until September 2021 and prior to that as vice chair on the Committee of Experts on Quality Journalism in the Digital Age.

At SZ she held leadership roles in the politics and business sections. She was also the founding editor of Süddeutsche’s ‘Plan W’, an award-winning quarterly magazine for women and business. Before joining SZ she worked for Financial Times Deutschland and Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

Alexandra holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Tulane University, New Orleans (1994), and in 2013 completed a Programme for Management Development at IESE Business School, Barcelona.