Ellana Lee

Ellana Lee (journalist)
Born	South Korea
Nationality	US
Alma mater	New York University, Georgetown University
Employer	CNN
Member of	Council on Foreign Relations/Members 2, WEF/Young Global Leaders/2008
CNN senior executive. Council on Foreign Relations. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Ellana Lee is Senior Vice President & Managing Editor, Asia Pacific, for CNN International, and Global Head of Features Content for CNN International and CNN Digital, a position she has held since 2011. She is based in the network's Asia Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. She is CNN's most senior executive outside of the United States, helping to drive the network's business outside the United States.

She was selected a Young Global Leader in 2008 by the World Economic Forum, and per 2021 sits on the board of the Young Global Leaders Foundation.

The biggest decisions we make are about what we decide not to cover. It requires a real discipline, some instinct, and years of learning lessons from mistakes. I’ve made many.

Career

She grew up in a South Korean elite family. Talking of her family: "Despite their growing up in South Korea in the 1960s— a very conservative society at a very conservative time — my grandfather allowed my mother to go to the United States to study."

She herself grew up in 1980s South Korea, but moved to the US to study. She holds a Master's degree in Broadcast Journalism from New York University and an undergraduate degree in History and International Relations from Georgetown University.

Lee has worked at CNN for a long time, beginning in New York as a producer to help launch the program 'In The Money'. She subsequently worked as a business producer and a senior planning producer, coordinating major events out of the Asia-Pacific region.

She has traveled to North Korea several times and in mid-2017 made an exclusive report called Secret State: Inside North Korea. She is a graduate of Harvard's 'Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century' Executive Program. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
WEF/Annual Meeting/2011	26 January 2011	30 January 2011	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2229 guests in Davos, with the theme: "Shared Norms for the New Reality".
WEF/Annual Meeting/2013	23 January 2013	27 January 2013	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2500 mostly unelected leaders met to discuss "leading through adversity"
WEF/Annual Meeting/2014	22 January 2014	25 January 2014	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2604 guests in Davos considered "Reshaping The World"
WEF/Annual Meeting/2017	17 January 2017	20 January 2017	World Economic Forum Switzerland	2950 known participants, including prominently Bill Gates. "Offers a platform for the most effective and engaged leaders to achieve common goals for greater societal leadership."
WEF/Annual Meeting/2019	22 January 2019	25 January 2019	World Economic Forum Switzerland	"The reality is that we are in a Cold War [against China] that threatens to turn into a hot one."
WEF/Annual Meeting/2020	21 January 2020	24 January 2020	World Economic Forum Switzerland	This mega-summit of the world's ruling class and their political and media appendages happens every year, but 2020 was special, as the continuous corporate media coverage of COVID-19 started more or less from one day to the next on 20/21 January 2020, coinciding with the start of the meeting.
WEF/Annual Meeting/2023	16 January 2023	20 January 2023	World Economic Forum Switzerland	The theme of the meeting was "Cooperation in a Fragmented World"

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