Hi there, I’m Lexie and I am delighted to be taking on the role of Impress CEO and excited to tackle the challenges and opportunities the future holds with the same passion that has characterised my career to date.

Having built a strong foundation with our wide membership, Impress is preparing to roll out a raft of exciting products and services for all kinds of news innovators, to continue to build public trust in news in the UK now and in the future.

But while I have met and spoken to lots of you throughout my five years working for Impress, many of you may be wondering who exactly has just taken over as CEO.

Well, I’m here to tell you more. In this blog, I take you through what has been an eventful career, highlighting the experiences, tests and people that have ultimately led me to where I am today.

I have always had a plethora of interests and, after signing myself out of school at 16 and passing the University entrance in New Zealand, I really struggled to choose one course that filled me with passion and purpose.

Unable to make up my mind, I decided to pursue a law degree, as well as psychology and political studies at the University of Auckland, and sought to puzzle together meaning across all of them. Finally, I found it in the intersection of legal norms, free expression, censorship and behavioural psychology. I then went on to complete my masters’ thesis on whether statutory tools were fit for purpose for regulating speech.

I always feel so lucky that I’ve been able to basically draw a straight line between my early education and the career I have now.

Passing the bar at a young age left a strong impression and, as an officer of the court, lawyers have a unique responsibility to uphold the integrity and dignity of the law and the legal system.

In my mind, being an advocate meant being a champion for justice and working tirelessly to ensure fairness and just outcomes for all. However, it also meant recognising that legal systems do not operate independently of other systems, including those of oppression, and judicious outcomes are not always realised in highly-technical settings – hence the need for systems of self-regulation.

“I always feel so lucky that I’ve been able to draw basically a straight line between my early education and the career I have now.”

Service providers like lawyers having to join professional bodies, maintain high ethical standards and treat parties with respect and fairness because of their fiduciary duties to their clients is a good model for journalists. After all, they owe similar duties to the public.

One of the perks of my career is the work I get to do with communities to understand their needs, in relation to their media use.

I first started this work in 2015 as part of the NZ OFLC Young New Zealanders Viewing Sexual Violence research, where we went out to the community and talked to representatives of various stakeholder groups and third sector organisations for their views.

“The most important value I can bring to my work, no matter the subject of concern, is the ethic of public service.”

This co-creational model of regulatory statute and decision-making is a methodology I’ve used throughout my career. Most recently at Impress we conducted a review into our standards and rules, with participation from hundreds of stakeholder representatives and underpinned by robust public research.

This ensures we are acting under a public mandate, ensuring regulation is co-creational and participatory for all, and being led by the best evidence and everyday lived experiences.

I didn’t start my career thinking I wanted to be a CEO, or that I was particularly destined for leadership. Even if I had, there wasn’t an obvious roadmap that I could follow.

There were many leaders I admired but they came in all shapes and sizes; bosses, educators, caretakers, mentors, aunties, and friends, in particular, Tītokowaru, my ancestor and a military and spiritual leader for Ngāruahine, and my grandmother Diane who was Wāhine Toa, a pillar of her community.

So, while I felt a little surprised when the prospect of being Chief Exec was first put to me, after a year of knuckling down, undergoing intensive training and development, shadowing and being mentored by other leaders, I was delighted to find myself on the other side of a challenging candidacy round with the offer to be Impress’ CEO.

I hope I can act as an example of non-traditional pathways into leadership for others, and show that passion and determination are far more important than fitting the mould.

As a regulator I’ve worked for at the coalface of many hundreds of cases and investigations where people have been harmed or the public and organisations are concerned about community harm.

It’s difficult for me to single out one particular case that I’ve worked on as career defining. There have been a number of firsts: classifying Facebook messages for CSA prosecutions, dynamic pricing in digital markets, transparency of influencer labelling, investigations into systemic press practices.

“I hope I can act as an example of non-traditional pathways into leadership for others, and show that passion and determination are far more important than fitting the mould.”

Many of these have been sensitive and challenging and I have learned a lot about people’s motivations and needs when they take the brave step of calling something out that they believe isn’t right and trying to do something about it.

For me, the most important value I can bring to my work, no matter the subject of concern, is the ethic of public service. The public must trust that you are acting impartially and in the public interest, that you’ll listen and you care, and that you’re going to do the best you can with the tools you have to alleviate their anxieties and get to a fair outcome.

Being accessible, kind, and helpful is critical to that, and a north star I think all regulators should aim for in their work.

About Impress 

Impress is a champion for news that can be trusted. We are here to make sure news providers can publish with integrity; and the public can engage in an ever-changing media landscape with confidence. We set the highest regulatory standards for news, offer education to help people make informed choices and provide resolution when disputes arise.

Media enquiries

Louie Chandler: louie@impressreg.org.uk / 02033076778