Ellen Heinrichs is the founder and CEO of the Bonn Institute. She has more than twenty years of experience as an innovation leader, journalist, speaker and communications expert for various media companies and international non-profit organizations. Prior to founding the Bonn Institute, she was Head of Knowledge Transfer and Innovation at the German foreign broadcaster DW.

Throughout her career, Ellen has been particularly interested in how journalism must change to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world.

In response to increasing news avoidance and declining trust in journalism, the nonprofit Bonn Institute has therefore made it its mission to make journalism more human-friendly, diverse and audience-engaging. The Bonn Institute works with a wide range of private, public and nonprofit media organizations, offering journalists workshops and networking opportunities, as well as advising media managers looking for a constructive compass.

Ellen Heinrichs is a qualified mediator, solutions journalism trainer and agile culture coach. She was also the first German fellow at the Constructive Institute at Aarhus University (Denmark). In 2022, she published the book Journalismus auf der Couch with Astrid Prange de Oliveira and contributed to the Bonn Institute study Constructive Opportunities and Challenges on journalism in times of war.

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