NEW! Keynote talk! Olga Rudenko – How to run a successful media start-up in times of war

Ukrainian editor Olga Rudenko comes to #CIJSummer Conference to talk about The Kyiv Independent, a very successful English language media start up. Established only a few months before Russia’s full-scale invasion, it quickly became one of the main sources of news from Ukraine in English. The number of its Twitter followers grew from 30,000 to over 2,100,000.

The publication was founded by the former journalists of an older English language publication The Kyiv Post, who were all fired following a dispute about editorial independence from its new owner. The Kyiv Independent reflects its values of independence and serving the community, not its owners, by taking on difficult topics, such as investigating abuse inside the International Legion fighting on the side of Ukraine.

Olga Rudenko herself was featured on the cover of Time magazine in May 2022 as one of the publication’s Next Generation Leaders, and won the Women of Europe award in the “Woman in Action” category in December 2022.

Olga will open the conference on Wed 28 June.