Editor In Chief, San Francisco Chronicle

Audrey Cooper

Audrey Cooper is the editor in chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, the first woman to fill the role in the company’s 154-year history and the youngest woman in U.S. history to run a major metro newspaper.

Every year since she was named editor, The Chronicle has been named the best large newspaper in California by the state’s leading news association. And under her leadership, The Chronicle has won nearly every major national journalism prize as well as more than a dozen Emmy awards.

Audrey has transformed The Chronicle into one of the country’s most innovative media outlets. Among other things, she started the SF Homeless Project, a first-of-its-kind collaboration of more than 100 news outlets dedicated to reporting on solutions to end homelessness — a new type of news coverage that has been replicated in cities around the world.

Audrey prioritizes investigative and explanatory journalism. Recent areas of focus have included investigating the causes and response to the Northern California wildfires; the troubled cleanup of the nation’s largest Superfund site, the mistreatment of foster youth in state shelters; shocking changes in juvenile crime; and misspent state and local tax dollars.

San Francisco magazine has named Audrey one of the city’s most powerful women. Editor and Publisher magazine named her one of the world’s “Top 10 Women to Watch” and Advertising Age named her one of their “Top 40 under 40.”

A native of the Kansas City area, Audrey graduated magna cum laude from Boston University, which has honored her as a distinguished alumna. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and their 7-year-old son. In her spare time, Audrey volunteers for San Francisco City Guides, a nonprofit that gives free walking tours of San Francisco.