Ellen Heinrichs
Founder & CEO, Bonn Institute
Ellen Heinrichs began her career at the regional newspaper Rheinische Post and came to Germany's foreign broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) via positions at international organisations. A trained journalist, she first helped establish the DW Akademie and then drove digitalisation in DW's programming. She helped found the internal network DW Minds and the DW Innovation Lab. She was the first German to be a fellow at the Constructive Institute at Aarhus University in Denmark. Ellen is a speaker, mediator, agile culture coach and solutions journalism trainer.
ellen.heinrichs@bonn-institute.org
Peter Lindner
Head of Projects and Research
Peter Lindner worked at the German national daily Süddeutsche Zeitung for a long time, spending almost 12 years as head of the politics section and more than six years as deputy editor-in-chief of SZ.de. He worked intensively on new approaches in journalism and developed several digital formats and projects, such as the SZ discussion project "Werkstatt Demokratie" (democracy workshop). Most recently, he worked on the "Listen Louder Project" at the Constructive Institute, housed at Denmark's University of Aarhus, where he researched approaches to how journalism can promote constructive dialogue in society. Democracy, dialogue and innovation in journalism are also his focus areas at the Bonn Institute. He studied political science, sociology and psychology in Munich and Bradford, UK.
peter.lindner@bonn-institute.org
Donata v. Below-Ritter
Office Manager
Constructive communication is what Donata von Below-Ritter is all about: She studied theatre and media at the University of Bayreuth, as well as international media studies at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences and the DW Akademie in Bonn. She gained experiences both in front of and behind the camera and provided copywriting at the international agency Ogilvy & Mather in Dusseldorf. Von Below-Ritter also has served in editorial capacities for the Rheinische Post newspaper and German TV station Phoenix. She currently manages the Bonn Institute's internal and external communications and is always looking at the world with diverse perspectives.
donata.v.below@bonn-institute.org
Sham Jaff
Senior Consultant Projects & Research
Sham Jaff likes it simple, clear-cut and international. For nearly a decade, the political scientist and journalist has been writing the newsletter "what happened last week". It curates the news, focusing on topics and perspectives from the Global South, which are often overlooked in the Western media landscape. Her podcast "190220 – Ein Jahr nach Hanau" (engl: 190220 - A Year After Hanau) was honored with the Grimme Online Award and her podcast "Wir schaffen das – Ein Satz, der Deutschland veränderte" (engl: We Can Do It - A Sentence that Changed Germany) was nominated for the CIVIS Audio prize. In 2021, Jaff was recognized by the German government as a "Culture and Creative Pilot in Germany". At the Bonn Institute she will bring her journalistic expertise and perspectives to research projects and more.
Lilly Amankwah
Projects
Lilly Amankwah likes to ask questions, both of herself and others. As a journalist and podcast host, she is interested in our societies' big topics, including from a social sciences perspective thanks to her studies in this area. For Lilly, it's important to be aware of diverse perspectives, especially those that are rarely given attention or even oftentimes entirely overlooked. At the Bonn Institute, the journalist not only asks questions but also looks for solutions.
lilly.amankwah@bonn-institute.org
Lisa Urlbauer
Head of Journalism Training
For Lisa Urlbauer, nothing beats constructive journalism. Following stints in Aarhus, Amsterdam, Valencia and New York, she joined the Bremen daily newspaper Weser-Kurier as a journalism trainee. She spent two years working for the Solutions Journalism Network in New York and Germany and has promoted the uptake of solutions-oriented journalism in Europe ever since. Her efforts to spread the practice earned her the Grow Fellowship from Netzwerk Recherche, a German non-profit dedicated to strengthening quality journalism. Lisa Urlbauer heads the Bonn Institute's journalism training programs and events and is an expert for local and climate journalism.
lisa.urlbauer@bonn-institute.org
Katja Ehrenberg
Advisor Skillsharing & Methods
Katja Ehrenberg is passionate about the intersection of theory and practice. An expert in solutions-oriented communication, she's interested in what inspires human development. At age 35 she was invited to become a professor of business and media at the Hochschule Fresenius, an applied sciences university in Cologne, where she also helped design the school's psychology program. Ehrenberg, who has a doctorate in psychology, has authored numerous publications in her field and worked as a freelance organisational consultant for a diverse range of companies.
katja.ehrenberg@bonn-institute.org Katja Ehrenberg
Jens Niggemann
Business Manager
When it comes to expenses, Jens Niggemann is an expert. Before joining the Bonn Institute, Niggemann managed finances for the Deutscher Volkshochschul-Verband (Association of German Adult Education Centres) in Bonn. He also served as a long-term advisor for Agiamondo, a Catholic development organisation dedicated to supporting civil society worldwide. In addition to business administration skills, Niggemann brings a wealth of cross-cultural knowledge and extensive experience working with diverse sponsors to the Bonn Institute.
jens.niggemann@bonn-institute.org
Enno Hinz
Student Assistant
Giving people a voice and making them heard at the same time: For Enno Hinz, this is a challenge that increasingly concerns him as a young journalist looking to the future. In addition to his work at Deutsche Welle (DW), he searches for answers in academia. In doing so, Enno looks outside the box. After several stations in Asia, Denmark and Germany, he is currently researching the future of journalism in his Erasmus Mundus master's program in Amsterdam. For the Bonn Institute, he is working on the practical implementation.
enno.hinz@bonn-institute.org
Kateri Jochum
Editor
Kateri Jochum views journalism as a means of cross-cultural exploration, a way to understand and illuminate people, places and issues to help expand perspectives. She got her first gigs writing about German youth culture while studying cultural studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and then honed her constructive journalism skills as a fellow at Deutsche Welle in Bonn. Her first love is audio and she's reported, hosted, produced, edited and lead radio and podcast teams for broadcasters such as Deutsche Welle, WDR, SRF, WNYC and ABC Radio News as well as legacy news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal in New York. As newsletter writer for the Bonn Institute, she's excited to share her insights from working on solutions' journalism projects and learn from like-minded journalists around the world about their experiences and visions for the field.
kateri.jochum@bonn-institute.org
Paula Rösler
Head of Communication
Paula Rösler is interested in what moves people and what people are moving. As an independent journalist, she managed the digital community of German broadcaster WDR 2, hosted the news podcast "Aufwacher" for the German paper "Rheinische Post", and worked as an editor and author for German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle. She first studied sport sciences in Cologne and Lyon, and then moved to Aarhus and Amsterdam for the Erasmus Mundus Master's program "Journalism, Media and Globalization". At the Bonn Institute, Paula Rösler oversees the b° Newsletter and is the contact person for our b° Community - write to her!
paula.roesler@bonn-institute.org
Claudia Isabel Rittel
Senior Consultant Projects & Research
Claudia Isabel Rittel worked for over ten years at the German national daily Frankfurter Rundschau. There, she assumed different roles in the regional editorial team. In the add-on master’s program New Media Journalism at Leipzig School of Media, from 2018 to 2021, the political scientist dealt with many of the challenges journalism faces today. As editorial developer at Mediengruppe VRM, she was engaged intensively in user needs and audience data and worked on a publication schedule aligned to users’ needs for several regional papers. Her perspective of the world has been shaped by an Atlantic-crossing in a sailing boat, her appreciation of our democracy by experiences in her birth-country Colombia.
claudia.rittel@bonn-institute.org