Find Your Mentor

Niketa Patel currently serves as Senior Director of Leadership Programs at Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. The role entails overseeing the flagship program for professional development for newsroom executives globally. Niketa is responsible for curriculum development, class design, recruitment, fundraising & marketing efforts for this program & more. Niketa also oversees CUNY’s Emerging Leadership Program too which is geared toward local and rural newsrooms.

Most recently, as Senior Director of Partnerships and Platforms at The 19th, Niketa oversaw editorial partnerships with a focus on republishing, co-publishing, collaborations, events and more. Niketa built and cultivated strategic partnerships with national, local and community newsrooms with an eye towards having The 19th’s journalism reach diverse audiences.

Previously, Niketa oversaw Print and Digital News Partnerships in the US for Twitter. In this role, she collaborated with newsrooms and journalists with regards to strategic initiatives, product adoption, best practices, safety and training which spanned across Twitter’s wide range of products and tools.

Niketa has a storied track record in digital journalism, audience engagement and product development at CNN, ABC News, CBS News, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Florida Times-Union and more. She’s currently Board Secretary for the Online News Association and has been a long time member of ONA, AAJA & SAJA.

Niketa lives in Atlanta with her energetic son.