Cathy Straight is VP of Transformation & Learning at CNN, where she works with journalists and editorial leaders to elevate storytelling and strengthen newsroom capabilities.

Prior to this role, Straight served as Vice President of Consumer Content, CNN Digital Products and Services, overseeing content expanding beyond hard news coverage. In this capacity, she worked to align and amplify CNN’s content diversity across its worldwide digital platforms. She also led breaking news and features teams, driving award-winning journalism including a CNN Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Media storytelling. She oversaw coverage teams on key beats such as wellness, travel, style, space, relationships, identity and culture, as well as the global team responsible for creating essential photography, data reporting, motion design and interactive storytelling for CNN’s digital platforms.

Before joining CNN, Straight was a reporter covering various beats including local news, features and entertainment before moving into leadership roles. She was also Senior Assignment Editor for the national news team at USA Today, Managing Editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Assistant Managing Editor at The Tennessean. In 2005 she was part of a Knight Ridder team of journalists dispatched to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for local and national coverage of Hurricane Katrina for the Sun Herald newspaper, whose coverage won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Straight, a native of Mississippi, holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern Mississippi, where she was inducted into the School of Mass Communication and Journalism Hall of Fame in 2007.