Washington Post appoints Truong as director of strategic initiatives

The Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron sent out the following announcement:

I am pleased to announce that Elite Truong will become The Post’s new director of strategic initiatives, effective immediately. Elite will lead our most cutting-edge digital experiments while serving as the newsroom’s liaison to the advertising department.

Elite has distinguished herself as the deputy director of strategic initiatives since 2018, working seamlessly with former director Jeremy Gilbert before his departure from The Post in August. Elite possesses the necessary qualities for this position: a passion for innovation, nuanced understanding of the possibilities of emerging technologies, superb skills in organization and presentation, a devotion to our journalistic mission and an appreciation for the business imperatives necessary to sustain it.

Most recently, Elite has shepherded the successful launch of our Road to Recovery site, bringing together in her trademark collaborative style representatives from nearly every corner of our newsroom along with our business and engineering colleagues. The initiative kicked off with a project on Sonoma’s wineries that was executed with drones and advanced mobile technology. Previously, Elite partnered with Chris Davenport and Robin Givhan on an augmented-reality project that told the stories of five iconic spacesuits over 50 years of space flight.

Elite has built her career at the vital intersection of journalism and technology. Before joining The Post, Elite served as product manager of audience experience at Vox Media, where she led business partnerships, product development, audience and editorial strategy for alternative platforms such as Facebook Instant Articles, Google AMP Stories, newsletters and Apple News. She will lead a team of five focused on experimental storytelling and report to the managing editor/digital.

Elite graduated Roosevelt University in 2013 with a bachelor’s in journalism and psychology.

In her years as deputy director of strategic initiatives, Elite has made 82 appearances before clients, journalists and collaborators to recount how The Post has forged a powerful combination of superior journalism and technological innovation, reaching additional audiences in new and ever more engaging ways.

We’re fortunate to have Elite as a leading evangelist of The Post’s capacity to innovate and as a highly effective executor of our most ambitious journalistic experiments. Please congratulate Elite on her appointment.