Coleen O’Lear named The Washington Post’s new head of curation and platforms

Announcement from Executive Editor Sally Buzbee and Chief Product Officer and Managing Editor Kat Downs Mulder:

We are thrilled to announce that Coleen O’Lear will become The Post’s new head of curation and platforms, effective immediately.

Coleen will work closely with leaders across the newsroom, product and engineering to develop and implement strategies for curation, packaging and distribution, and find ways to surface more of our great journalism for a growing global readership across a wide variety of products and platforms.

Coleen has been an innovative force over the past 10 years, serving as homepage editor, mobile producer, managing producer, editorial director and deputy director of emerging news products and, most recently, head of mobile strategy. This range of experience has put Coleen on the cutting edge of editorial and technical trends, making her well-positioned to take on this role.

As Head of Curation and Platforms, Coleen will oversee multiple teams, including the homepage, copy desk, apps and Apple News, social media, operations and SEO, and news product. This group includes more than a hundred journalists who are responsible for programming, packaging and optimizing our journalism across multiple products. These teams develop fresh approaches for new platforms; ensure our journalism effectively reaches and engages a growing audience; and build templates, workflows and tools that help us maintain high standards and quality everywhere we publish our work.

Coleen has demonstrated her ability to lead complex initiatives from inception to implementation throughout her career. She has a comprehensive understanding of our tools, workflows, audiences, voice and teams. She has partnered with engineering, product, design, analytics, marketing and advertising to develop products including “The 7” and By The Way, as well as managing our Snapchat Discover channel and partnership with Apple News. She has been a key partner to product and engineering for the unification of our flagship and Select apps, which is in progress. She was a founding member of the team that built the Select app in 2014.

Coleen joined The Post in 2011 from the Island Packet in South Carolina, where she was assistant copy desk chief. Before that, she was a copy editor at the Times-Picayune, where she worked in news and sports, and was part of a pioneering digital team at NOLA.com. She also teaches a class about the business of media innovation at Northwestern University’s Medill School.

Please join us in congratulating Coleen on her new role.