About me
Ebony Reed is a media executive, journalist, speaker, author, and former journalism professor whose work spans both the editorial and business sides of media. She serves as Chief Strategy Officer of The Marshall Project, the Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit newsroom covering the U.S. justice system, where she leads strategy across business partnerships, marketing, communications, and revenue. Her content and subject expertise includes storytelling, economic mobility, inclusive programming, and civic engagement.
Before joining The Marshall Project, Reed held newsroom and revenue leadership roles at The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, The Detroit News, The Plain Dealer, and the Boston Business Journal.
She is the co-author of the bestselling book Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap (HarperCollins, 2024), an examination of the Black-white wealth gap based on nearly 400 interviews and extensive genealogy research tracing four to five generations across seven families.
A former associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, Reed has also taught at more than seven colleges and universities, including Emerson in Boston and the Yale School of Management. Born in Louisville, raised in suburban Detroit, and now based in Kansas City, Mo., she has received honors including an Image Award from the Boston NAACP, recognition on the Boston Business Journal 40 Under 40 list, and the Kansas City Royals Foundation’s Buck O’Neil Legacy Award.
