The Board and Team

Chairman: Frank Gander, senior strategic advisor for the Amedia Group in Norway. Formerly senior editor for investigations, editorial, and digital development at Norwegian newspapers and the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, and project director for Tinius Trust Foundation, the main shareholder of the Schibsted Media Group.

Treasurer: Roelof Gunnink, finance and operations manager at SOMO, The Netherlands.

Secretary: Daniel Simons, lawyer specializing in communications and freedom of expression-related issues. Simons is Dutch, but based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Director: Brigitte Alfter, is a senior German-Danish journalist, founder and director for Arena for Journalism in Europe and lecturer at the University of Gothenburg. Having practiced journalism on local, national and European level, she realised the need for cross-border collaborative journalism structures. Since 2003, she thus has developed European support- and infrastructures for cross-border journalism along her own journalism practice. Today, she combines journalism practice including editorial advice and mentoring, entrepreneurial activities, teaching/training and academic research.

Deputy director: Trine Smistrup, journalist and trainer, co-founder of Arena for Journalism in Europe, deputy director of Dataharvest – the European Investigative Journalism conference and communications officer for Arena and Dataharvest. Trine has worked with journalism and training for journalists in Denmark, the Nordic countries, and Russia, and was involved in the SCOOP project, a peer-to-peer program for investigative journalism in Eastern Europe and Russia. Her special interest is making difficult subjects interesting and understandable for readers. She also holds a master’s degree in digital communications.

Deputy director and operations manager: Mikala Rasmussen supports the sustainable growth of Arena across financial, organisational, and logistical aspects. She has a background in the not-for-profit sector in Europe and experience with international project coordination and strategic organisational development.

Finance manager: Cora Moyano is an industrial engineer from Argentina, holding an MA in International Economics and Business from Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary. With over a decade of experience in the nonprofit sector, seven of which were dedicated to the Global Investigative Journalism Network, she is committed to enhancing transparency and accountability through finance. Cora is dedicated to supporting journalists by freeing up their time and removing barriers, allowing them to focus on their calling: holding power to account and exposing wrongdoing.

Project manager: Ruben Brugnera is a Brussels-based investigative journalist and lecturer at the Thomas More school of journalism. For Dataharvest in Mechelen, he coordinates the volunteers and takes care of conference logistics.

Communications Manager: Giacomo Galardini (on parental leave), a Berlin-based freelance journalist who has reported for various publications in English and his native Italian, focusing on the intersection between finance and sports.

Technology manager: Benedikt Hebeisen is a freelance IT consultant and journalist based in Berlin. He manages all digital things for the Dataharvest and Arena.

Data skills coordinator: Adriana Homolová is a Slovak-born Austria based freelance data journalist and Python trainer. For Arena, she is coordinating the hands-on data skills track for the Dataharvest conference, and working as a data librarian of the Crossborder Journalism Campus. Next to that, she works with the Dutch-based investigative newsroom Follow The Money, focusing on European topics and crossborder collaborations.

Collaborative Desk coordinator: Deborah Meibergen is the IT coordinator of Arena’s Collaborative Desk. Self-taught, she has worked in the arts, digital rights, information / cyber security and free and open source software (FOSS) community for more than 20 years. As an activist, Deborah is vocal about defending human rights, freedom of speech, inequality, digital security and privacy.

Communications Manager (interim): Eliz Mizon works in and on independent, non-profit journalism, helping teams with strategy, campaigns, comms and operations. She was the Strategy Lead at The Bristol Cable for two years, overseeing their successful year-long membership campaign, and often works with journalistic nonprofits and campaigns such as the Media Reform Coalition and the Charitable Journalism Project.

Reference Circle coordinator: Johanna Pisco is an Ecuadorean journalist and communicator based in London. Johanna brings a wealth of experience working in the civil society sector, focusing efforts on the safety and development of journalists and media workers worldwide.

Dataharvest director, project coordinator: Jelena Prtoric is a freelance investigative journalist who has reported for a variety of publications in English, French and her native Croatian. Her work has focused mainly on migration, the environment/climate, social movements and gender rights. She is also an occasional podcaster and translator of graphic novels. As of 2024, she is the director of Dataharvest, the European Investigative Journalism Conference. She also pursues investigative work within the Arena Climate and Food and Water networks.

Data Coordinator: Leopold Salzenstein is a freelance investigative data journalist and trainer based in the south of France. At Arena, he coordinates the handling of data for publications and trainings.

Climate network director: Zeynep Sentek is a Turkish investigative journalist reporting on the environment, human rights, and corruption. She is the project director of the Arena Climate Network, where she brings journalists, scientists, and civic tech together for better climate reporting in Europe. She was formerly the managing editor of the independent news platform The Black Sea (theblacksea.eu), where she remains a board member. She previously worked at UK-based news site openDemocracy. She was a part of the pan-European journalism consortium European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) Network and was a board member. She has a PhD in political science from Heidelberg University in Germany.

Arena Networks Coordinator: Hazel Sheffield is a British journalist reporting on all aspects of business and economics, from US fund managers attempting to crack China to community co-operatives in the British countryside. At Arena, she is leading the networks and working on the Arena Papers. Hazel co-ordinated “Money to Burn”, a cross-border investigation into the effects of Europe’s renewable energy subsidies on forests in Estonia which was published across 10 newsrooms including the Guardian, Die Zeit Online and Publico. In 2023, she was a European Journalism Fellow at the Freie Universität in Berlin.

Arena Academy coordinator: Jonathan Stoneman has been a freelance trainer concentrating mainly on datajournalism since 2010. Before that Jonathan was in the BBC for 20 years as a researcher, a BBC World Service journalist and in the World Service Training department, serving as one of its joint heads. 
As a freelancer Jonathan has worked with broadcasters in Eastern Europe under various projects with the European Commission, the OSCE, and the European Broadcasting Union’s Eurovision Academy. 
Jonathan’s main interest in the last decade has been data journalism. He coordinates Arena Academy, works with the Dataharvest team and is the main trainer for the Arena Climate Network.

Logistics coordinator: Klaudia Wieser is a Vienna-based social scientist, freelance project and event manager, and logistics coordinator at ARENA.