Kellen Henry is a journalist and product manager at The New York Times, where she creates new ways for readers to experience Times journalism. She has spent her career promoting mobile and digital innovation in legacy newsrooms, building tools to support new story formats and expanding the reach of those stories to audiences online.
Since joining The Times in 2014, she has worked on projects to redesign the home page, launch native 360-degree video players, test content strategies for reaching international audiences, experiment with new platforms such as Facebook Instant and Google AMP and enhance the mobile app reading experience.
She is currently leading a new initiative to make the planning and publishing of stories more efficient and collaborative across the newsroom.
Before joining The Times, Kellen worked on mobile app and content strategy in the Associated Press newsroom and helped launch a new government news platform as a founding web producer at Bloomberg Government.
She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from West Virginia University and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University. In 2017, she was selected to participate in the Online News Association’s Women’s Leadership Accelerator.
A native of West Virginia, Kellen lives in Brooklyn with her partner, Nathan, where she also tends two hives of honeybees.
What is the greatest challenge in today’s digital landscape?
Our greatest challenge is to manage the rapid innovation necessary to pursue new sources of revenue and audience without compromising our ability to do fearless, independent reporting and great storytelling.
What is the greatest opportunity in today’s digital landscape?
Our greatest opportunity is thoughtful collaboration, whether it’s across teams within our companies, with our audience, with social and tech companies outside our industry or with other newsrooms we’ve traditionally seen as competitors.
What should students graduating from the Greenlee School know about today’s digital landscape?
Learn the fundamentals of journalism even if you never plan to work as a reporter because your ability to do meticulous research, listen for detail, recognize patters, run the numbers yourself, respond to deadlines, and write clearly and concisely are vital to succeeding at the next generation of digital media jobs.