Jennifer Brandel is CEO and Co-founder of Hearken. She began her career in journalism in the early aughts, reporting for outlets including NPR, CBC, WBEZ, The New York Times and Vice, picking up awards along the way. In 2012 she founded the groundbreaking audience-first series called Curious City at WBEZ in Chicago and is spreading the model around the world via Hearken. The company was selected for and participate in the Matter VC accelerator and took home the prize for “Best Bootstrap Company” at the SXSW 2016 Accelerator competition. Brandel was awarded the 2016 Media Changemaker Prize by the Center for Collaborative Journalism.