https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-x4mpw-1b8ba1e

My guest today is Nabiha Syed, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation, and one of the leading voices working at the intersection of technology, journalism, civil liberties, and the public interest.

Nabiha has spent her career examining questions of information, power, and accountability: who controls information, who has access to it, and how powerful institutions can be held accountable.

A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Nabiha studied at the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar before earning her law degree at Yale Law School, where she co-founded the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic.

She began her career as a First Amendment and media lawyer, serving as a fellow at The New York Times before joining BuzzFeed as its first newsroom lawyer. She eventually became Vice President and Associate General Counsel, overseeing legal issues involving press freedom, newsgathering, and defamation, including BuzzFeed’s successful defense of litigation surrounding the publication of the Steele dossier.

In 2019, she joined the founding leadership team of The Markup, an investigative journalism nonprofit dedicated to holding technology companies accountable through data-driven reporting. She subsequently became its CEO, leading an award-winning newsroom whose investigations helped shape public debate, regulatory scrutiny, and litigation concerning the technology industry.

In 2024, Nabiha became Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation, where she leads efforts to advance a more open, trustworthy, and human-centered technological future, with particular attention to artificial intelligence.

Beyond her executive work, Nabiha serves on the boards of the Scott Trust, which owns The Guardian, the Mellon Foundation, and the Girl Scouts of the USA. Her contributions to journalism and civil liberties have earned numerous honors, including the 2023 NAACP–Archewell Digital Civil Rights Award.

Across law, journalism, and philanthropy, Nabiha’s career has been defined by a commitment to protecting the public interest in an increasingly technologically mediated world.