Rig Hehenkamp started out as a creative and has built her career in journalism, a profession she sees as one of the foundations of a healthy democracy, and one that must keep serving an audience now splintering across platforms. As Transformation Lead at RTL Nieuws, she designed the operating model that now underpins the newsroom's multi-year transformation: a story-centric, multiplatform way of working that brings people, technology, AI and editorial process into one coherent system. Her thinking moves naturally across disciplines, connecting ideas that others keep in separate boxes. That outlook shaped her core argument: real change in journalism is never driven from the top alone. It is carried at every level of the newsroom, by everyone who touches the work. This is why she argues for leadership distributed across all layers of the organization. She also chairs the Fonn Group User Summit as an independent voice. There she represents the participating broadcasters, co-shaping a program about the future of the profession.
With Karlijn Goossen, Maike Olij, Rig Hehenkamp, Danielle Arets and Leoni van de Schraaf
This session explores how journalism leadership can be redesigned as a collective practice rooted in collaboration, dialogue and shared responsibility. Through a participatory dinner debate and panel discussion, we will gather newsroom insights and co-create a manifesto for human-centred, constructive and future-facing leadership in journalism.