• Tell us a bit about your background. How long have you been working in journalism, what roles have you held, and what projects are you the most proud of?

Before starting my journalism career, I was on an academic path. After completing my undergraduate degree, I travelled to Ethiopia, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Liberia before pursuing graduate studies in globalization and development politics in the UK. I initially planned to complete a PhD, but a series of fortunate events and a few good decisions led me back home to Vancouver and into the journalism program at UBC.

I joined the UBC Graduate School of Journalism (now JWAM) in 2010, where I was part of an incredible cohort of talented journalists, many of whom have gone on to remarkable careers. I was fortunate to learn from both my inspiring classmates and the outstanding instructors at the school. The lessons I took from them, and the relationships I built, continue to shape my approach to journalism today. While at UBC, I was a fellow in the Global Reporting Program, where I was part of the Beneath the Boom team that reported from Brazil in 2012 for The New York Times.

That reporting experience as a student opened a few doors, and after graduating from UBC, I joined CBC, where I spent eight years in a variety of roles, primarily out of the Vancouver newsroom, working for CBC News Network. In early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter Klein, the GRC’s founder and my former professor, asked if I wanted to collaborate on a documentary about a little-known bribery scandal in the oil industry. I jumped at the chance to work with him again. We actually had to shelve the project for a year and a half during the pandemic, but in the summer of 2021, we picked it back up, and that became Bribe, Inc., which we just completed last year. 

• So, you worked with GRC founder Peter Klein on the Bribe, Inc. documentary, but you worked with him on a number of other stories as well. Tell us about those.

Yes, Bribe, Inc. was a major collaboration with Peter, but we had worked together on several projects before that.

Our first collaboration was Dying for Land, a documentary for The New York Times that explored deadly conflicts over land rights in Brazil. At the time, Peter was one of the instructors for the UBC Global Reporting Program, and I was a student. I was part of a four-person team led by Peter, along with two other students, who travelled to southwestern Brazil to investigate violent land disputes between Indigenous communities and local farmers.

That trip also gave me a bit of an unintended reputation. On our final day in Brazil, I managed to get our entire group detained by federal police. Nothing serious happened, as they were just trying to block our reporting and intimidate us, but Peter still tells students that one of his past students, me, got him detained for a full day in Brazil. He likes to joke that the goal for every subsequent student group should be to avoid getting their professors detained in a foreign country. 

We later worked together on Out of the Shadows, a short documentary for Al Jazeera’s People & Power that examined the challenges of overcoming mental illness and breaking the stigma around it. I was also an associate producer on America’s Medical Supply Crisis, a joint investigation between FRONTLINE, The Associated Press, and the GRC. This investigation uncovered critical failures in the U.S. medical supply chain during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• You also worked on the GRC’s investigation into money laundering and tax evasion as part of the Jersey Offshore (2021) team and the subsequent four-part podcast about the investigation process, Trust Us. What was your experience working on those projects?

That was my first time working on an offshore data leak, so it was an exciting opportunity to collaborate with an incredible team of journalists. Some of them had worked on major investigations into offshore leaks by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), like the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, so I learned a lot from their expertise. Jersey Offshore was a smaller leak and a much smaller team, but it was eye-opening to systematically piece together what turned out to be an elaborate web of tax evasion by a trust company called La Hougue, located in Jersey (Channel Islands, UK).

Our investigation uncovered how La Hougue offered money laundering techniques to a select group of clients and documented how many of them used these methods to hide millions of dollars from tax authorities in dozens of countries, including Canada. Collaborating with the Toronto Star and two of their best investigative journalists, Rob Cribb and Marco Chown Oved, on the Canadian-focused Jersey Offshore stories remains some of my favourite work as a journalist.

• I want to ask you more about your latest project, Bribe, Inc. You were the lead producer and co-wrote it alongside Peter Klein. What were some of your big takeaways from producing a feature documentary about corruption? 

The biggest takeaway for me is just how ineffective our systems to prevent corruption are at holding individuals and companies accountable for rampant bribery and corruption. Even when caught red-handed, Unaoil and the Ahsanis were able to manipulate the system and escape justice with little impact on their personal finances or freedom.

Working on Bribe, Inc. made it clear just how stacked the system is in favour of wealthy and well-connected wrongdoers. Governments and regulatory bodies talk tough on corruption, but in practice, enforcement is often weak, penalties are minimal, and the legal process is slow and easily gamed by those with the right resources. The Ahsanis weren’t just beneficiaries of this broken system; they actively exploited it to protect themselves.

This story reinforced how high-level corruption isn’t just about a few bad actors; it’s about the systemic failures that allow them to thrive. That’s why investigative journalism is so important. Without journalists exposing these cases, most of this corruption would stay hidden, and the public would never know how much is really at stake.

Even with great journalists and brave whistleblowers exposing these crimes, the general public remains largely unaware of, or, in many cases, indifferent to, the consequences of corruption. Too often, they view it as a victimless crime. As journalists, we have to do some soul-searching about our failure to convince people of the importance of these issues. If we can’t make the public care, how can we ever expect real change?

• Switching gears, you’re now Acting Executive Editor here at the GRC. What brought you to the centre, and what are you focused on over the next six months?

I’ve been connected to the GRC in various ways for years, from my time as a student in the Global Reporting Program to working on projects like Jersey Offshore and America’s Medical Supply Crisis. So when the opportunity came up to step into the Acting Executive Editor role, it felt like a natural fit. The GRC’s approach to journalism — collaborative, deeply reported, and globally focused — aligns with the kind of work I believe in.

Over the next six months, I’m focusing on strengthening that model and ensuring we continue to produce high-impact investigative and documentary work. A big part of my role is helping shape and support our ongoing projects, from investigations into hazardous rail transport to exposing the global impact of sportswashing. I’m also working closely with our team to expand our funding strategies, ensuring we have the resources to keep telling important stories.

Beyond that, I want to continue fostering the GRC’s commitment to empowerment journalism. That means bringing in emerging storytellers, collaborating with those most affected by the issues we cover, and ensuring that our reporting is both rigorous and meaningful. There is a lot on the horizon, and I’m excited to be part of it.

• What do you see as the big-picture challenges facing journalism, and, specifically, the type of global reporting we’re focused on here at the GRC?

One of the biggest challenges facing journalism today is the erosion of trust in the media. Audiences are increasingly skeptical and, in some cases, outright hostile toward journalism, often viewing it through political or ideological lenses. This makes it harder to cut through the noise with fact-based, in-depth reporting, particularly on complex global issues.

For the kind of global journalism we do at the GRC, one of the biggest obstacles is resources. Investigative, cross-border reporting takes time, expertise, and funding, yet many traditional news organizations are scaling back on international coverage. This creates gaps in reporting at a time when global issues such as climate change, corruption, conflict, and human rights abuses demand serious, sustained attention.

Another challenge is access and safety. Many of the most important stories today require reporting from places where journalists face increasing risks, whether from authoritarian governments, corporate interests, or criminal networks. At the same time, restrictions on press freedom are growing worldwide, making it harder for journalists to do their jobs.

Despite these challenges, there are also opportunities. The GRC has developed a model of journalism that goes beyond traditional reporting and serves as a blueprint for the future of global investigations. Our approach is built on investigating deeply, empowering emerging storytellers and affected communities, and fostering meaningful collaborations across borders. We challenge industry norms by incorporating academic rigour into our work, partnering with researchers to strengthen our investigations and provide deeper context. We do not just report stories; we educate, train, and facilitate reporting in ways that create lasting impact.

By embedding mentorship and training into our projects, we help develop the next generation of investigative journalists while producing stories that might not otherwise be told. We also bridge gaps between journalists and academics, recognizing that research and investigative reporting can reinforce each other in powerful ways. This multidisciplinary, collaborative model allows us to uncover complex global issues with depth, accuracy, and impact.

The challenge ahead is not just how to sustain this kind of reporting but how to make it more relevant, accessible, and influential for audiences. That is something we at the GRC are thinking about every day, and being part of that mission is really important to me.

• What big projects do we have in the pipeline that you are most excited about?

There are a lot of exciting projects in the pipeline at the GRC, but a few stand out for their potential impact.

One of the projects I am most excited about is our ongoing investigation into hazardous rail transport in North America. This is a deeply reported, data-driven collaboration with partners across journalism and academia, and it has the potential to expose critical safety risks that affect communities across the continent. Given the increasing number of derailments and environmental disasters linked to rail transport, this project could have real-world consequences and push for stronger oversight and accountability.

I am also really looking forward to our second season of the State of Play podcast on sportswashing. This is an issue that is only growing in scale, with governments and corporations using sports to whitewash reputations and distract from human rights abuses, environmental destruction, and corruption. For this upcoming season, we are expanding our reporting on this through new investigations and partnerships. It is an opportunity to challenge dominant narratives and examine the real power dynamics at play in global sports.

Beyond these major investigations, I am excited about the work we are doing to expand our empowerment journalism model. We are launching new collaborations with emerging storytellers, experimenting with new formats, and strengthening our partnerships. The goal is not just to report important stories but to build frameworks that allow others to do this work as well.

It is an exciting time at the GRC, and I am looking forward to seeing these projects unfold.