What happens after the NPMC? Alumni share how the program changed their work and careers
The News Product Management Certification was built on a simple premise: that the skills needed to lead product strategy in journalism are too important to leave to chance. But what does that actually look like in practice? As the industry’s first certification dedicated to news product management, the NPMC program has so far successfully trained over 140 alumni across 35 countries, creating a consolidated community of practitioners who are currently redefining newsrooms at Bloomberg News, CNN, The San Francisco Standard, The i Paper, Yle, El País, Radio Free Asia, and more.
We asked some of these alumni from across our cohorts to share what changed after they completed the program. Here's what they told us.
Acquiring better tools for their work
For many alumni, the program's impact shows up in everyday work: how they approach audience research, align stakeholders around a decision, or make the case for a product decision.
Judith Langowski, Editor for Newsletter and Notifications Strategy at Reuters, works in an editorial bridge role — sitting between teams, translating priorities, and navigating competing demands. "The program helped me narrow down on key issues I face in my daily work and gave me genuinely useful tools for how to work through them," she said.
Laura Blake, Director of Audience Experience at WRAL, used the skills she gained during and after the program to bring product thinking to a complex custom CMS and digital infrastructure rebuild: writing PRDs around infrastructure components, aligning stakeholders, and deliberately surfacing quick wins each sprint to build momentum. She keeps a simple question on her whiteboard that she uses to center conversations across the organization: "What problem are you trying to solve?”
Showing up with more confidence
Beyond frameworks and tools, something else shifts for a lot of alumni: how they show up in the rooms where product decisions get made.
Mike King, Senior Manager of Curation Strategy at Yahoo News, noticed the change in how his colleagues perceived him. "I feel empowered to speak more confidently, share my vision more broadly, and pursue a career in strategy and product work."
Morgan Manella Greenfield, Product Manager at USA TODAY Co and Head of Editorial Product at InPress, says: “This program provided me with a practical framework for bridging editorial, product, and engineering and helped me lead with more confidence across cross-functional teams.”
Developing capstones with real-world impact
The program's capstone project is grounded in each participant's real work. For some alumni, it turned ongoing work into something concrete enough to ship, fund, or scale.
Joaquín Saralegui, Product Manager at Chequeado, turned his capstone project into a fully functional AI-powered verification assistant. With support from the JournalismAI grant and three additional funders, the tool is now used daily in Chequeado's newsroom and deployed across 12 other organizations in Latin America and the US. "It's also helping us get more funds to help small newsrooms and organizations in the region," he said.
Nichole Dobo, Director of Audience at The Hechinger Report, hired and managed a team for a website rebuild for her capstone project, which resulted in an increase in users and automations that save her editorial team 40+ working hours a year.
Apply now to join the next cohort of the News Product Management Certification! Applications for Cohort 6 are open through May 8.
