More CIJSummer 2026 Speakers Announced

We are delighted to welcome more speakers to #CIJSummer Conference 2026!

Henk van Ess – an investigator, tool builder, and OSINT trainer. He is one of the first to integrate AI into investigative methods that hold up under scrutiny.

Scilla Alessi – an investigative reporter and video journalist for ICIJ, who will talk about investigating governments on their climate action promises as well as investigating greenwashing.

Pierre Leibovici – the Environment Editor at Disclose, who will speak about how to make sure your investigations create the biggest impact.

Maxence Peigné – a journalist at Investigate Europe, who will teach how to use Companies House and other open-source material to investigate companies.

Back again

Gill Phillips – is a solicitor who works as an editorial legal consultant for a number of NGOs and not-for-profits, she is also a member of the CIJ’s Board of Trustees. She will talk about the lessons learned from the Guardian’s successful defence of the Noel Clarke libel suit.

Sirin Kale is an investigations correspondent for The Guardian. She will be moderating the talk with Gill Phillips about the Noel Clarke libel suit.

Gill Phillips

Gill Phillips is a solicitor who works as an editorial legal consultant for a number of NGOs and not-for-profits, advising on a range of content-related matters including defamation, privacy, contempt of court and reporting restrictions.

Henk van Ess

Henk van Ess is an investigator, tool builder, and trainer with two decades in online research and OSINT — and one of the first to integrate AI into investigative methods that hold up under scrutiny.

Maxence Peigné

Maxence is a French journalist based in London for the cross-border co-operative Investigate Europe. He has worked on in-depth investigations into multinationals such as care home leader Orpea and oil giant Perenco.

Scilla Alecci

Scilla Alecci is an investigative reporter and video journalist for ICIJ. She is also the partnership coordinator for Asia and Europe. A native of Italy, before joining ICIJ, Scilla was based in Tokyo where she worked for Bloomberg News and other news organisations.

Sirin Kale

Sirin Kale is an investigations correspondent for the Guardian, where she specialises in long-form investigative features. In 2021 she won the British Journalism Award for Arts and Entertainment Journalism for an investigation she co-authored into sexual misconduct allegations made by 20 women against the actor Noel Clarke.

Published: 20 Apr 2026