Diane Sylvester is an award-winning multimedia journalist and newsroom leader working in the U.S. and internationally. Her work focuses on building diverse news teams, project development, editorial leadership, recruitment, strategic planning and fundraising. 

Diane works in video, audio, digital and print mediums helping to produce distinctive reporting projects, including investigative series. She has helped launch and grow digital newsrooms, most recently serving as founding Executive Producer for Investigative and Special projects for Futuro Media Group and earning an Overseas Press Award in 2021. Previously she was the Senior Planning Manager for the Wall Street Journal’s Global Video Unit and spearheaded their coverage of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and helped establish and maintain newsroom editorial guidelines for reporting in new media formats. 

As an executive leader she’s helped develop strategic plans to advance the missions of multiple non-profit organizations focusing on recruiting and retaining diverse staff and building systems that aid in their professional development. She is adept at helping an organization refine their mission and goals and in securing critical partnerships to amplify their work. Diane’s work with non-profit organizations, particularly newsrooms, has extended to developing revenue streams and in executing fundraising efforts that have garnered more than tens of millions of dollars in grants for dozens of organizations and individual projects.

Earlier in her career Diane worked for ABC and CNN reporting from Washington DC, New York and overseas as a field producer and senior newsroom manager. She’s covered a variety of stories and beats including the White House, Pentagon, Congress and other political and general news assignments including the Kosovo War, the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf region. Her reporting has garnered multiple Emmy awards, an Overseas Press Club award for investigative radio reporting, an IRE audio investigations award, and a NY Press Club Award. She has also worked as an independent filmmaker and storyteller. Her short films have been shown in New York and Barcelona and she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for her work-in-progress documentary about Cuban-US relations.