In conversation with Kristen Cruzata, Chief of Staff at The Athletic
If you ask what is driving innovation in media today, the conversation often turns to AI, algorithms, new platforms, and whatever disruption comes next. Kristen Cruzata, Chief of Staff at The Athletic, offered our Managing Innovation in Media class a different starting point: innovation happens through the relationships we build.
Cruzata’s career has taken her from international policy to The New York Times Opinion section, where she managed a global group of writers and editors, and now to The Athletic, where she helps lead the organization’s next iteration. Across these experiences, she has developed a guiding principle: understanding people, making room for their ideas, and moving those ideas through an organization are central to innovation.
Our conversation challenged us to think about innovation as something that happens between people, shaped by trust, communication, preparation, and the willingness to learn.
Are the Right People in the Room?
Cruzata kept returning to one question: “Do we have the right people in the room at the right time?”
The question sounds straightforward, but answering it requires more than understanding an organizational chart. Every organization has its own structure, relationships, and ways of working. Leaders need to understand what motivates people, how they relate to one another, and why they show up to the table.
Cruzata emphasized the importance of knowing the people around you and recognizing the group dynamics that shape how ideas move. She described this as finding a “balance between efficiency and delicacy.” Ideas need to move forward, yet how they are introduced matters. One example she shared was a small change in language. Instead of saying, “Let’s do it this way,” a leader might ask, “Have we thought about doing it this way?”
That shift creates room for others to contribute. It allows an idea to develop through collaboration, rather than arrive as a decision people are expected to accept.
Cruzata’s example epitomizes a larger idea of how leadership can shape the conditions for creativity. Are questions that are asked inviting dialogue and experimentation? Or are they being asked to simply follow directions? Innovation requires a clear sense of where a team is going and attention to how people are brought into that process.
Trust Comes First
“Vulnerability begets vulnerability.”
Even in a newsroom of more than 500 people, Cruzata emphasized the importance of thinking about colleagues at an “atomic level.” When she moved to The Athletic from The New York Times, she made an effort to learn employees’ names and faces before meeting many of them. It was a small gesture that helped establish relationships across a large organization.
Her example made trust feel less like an abstract leadership principle and more like something built through everyday attention.
Cruzata also spoke about the importance of creating an environment where people feel comfortable speaking up, questioning assumptions, and sharing ideas that may not work. When people feel safe contributing, teams have more opportunities to learn from one another and develop stronger ideas over time.
Innovation has a strong relationship with the culture surrounding the work. People have valuable experience and ideas, but whether those are shared in full depends on how leaders respond to uncertainty, disagreement and vulnerability.
Cruzata also stressed that communication must continue throughout a process of change. People need to understand the larger direction of the work, not just receive a decision after it has been made. And when circumstances require a pivot, leaders have to bring people along.
As she explained, “You have to be able to quickly pivot and then effectively communicate to those people who are going to be affected by the pivot.”
A pivot is often discussed as a strategic decision: recognize a problem, adjust the plan, and move forward. Cruzata reminded us that it is also relational. The people doing the work need to understand why the direction has changed and how their roles connect to what comes next.
Listen before you Build
The same attention to relationships applies to audiences.
At The Athletic, teams use consumer research, focus groups, an Audience Insights group, and A/B testing to understand how readers engage with coverage and personalize feeds around individual reader interests. Cruzata’s examples helped us see how empathy for user needs can shape the questions a team asks before developing a product or service.
During the FIFA World Cup, growing excitement among US audiences presented an opportunity for The Athletic. Rather than treating coverage as a question of reporting the match itself, the team considered the larger experience of being a fan. What happens before the game? What does the result mean? What questions do fans have afterward? What brings them back the next day?
Those questions opened up possibilities for live coverage, streams, discussion feeds, and analysis. The goal was to create ways for readers to gather around the sport and continue engaging before and after the final whistle.
Cruzata also raised the challenge of the “second screen.” If someone is already watching a match, what can The Athletic offer that complements the experience instead of competing with it?
That question shifts the focus from producing more content to understanding how people already engage with sports. Innovation may involve developing a new product or feature, but it can also begin with recognizing an existing audience behavior and finding a more useful way to support it.
This was a key takeaway from our discussion: listening helps teams ask the right question leading to more impactful solutions for their audience.
Speed Runs on Preparation
Sports journalism operates on a fast-moving news cycle. A story can dominate the conversation and disappear within hours. Newsrooms need to respond quickly, experiment, and make decisions under pressure.
Cruzata’s World Cup example showed how much preparation makes that speed possible. The Athletic began planning well in advance, including relocating a prominent journalist to the United States 18 months before the tournament.
What appears immediate to an audience is often the result of months of work.
Cruzata’s example also highlighted the challenge of moving from many ideas toward a clear direction. Teams need time to gather information and explore possibilities, yet they also need to decide what matters most and move forward together.
The Athletic’s World Cup coverage brought these elements together. Early planning created a strong network of reporters and sources. When news broke, the team could draw on that preparation, assess what mattered, and respond quickly.
Rushing without preparation doesn’t necessarily mean faster. Efficiency comes from the groundwork of relationships, knowledge and the process that lets people act decisively when a moment arrives.
Stay Willing to Learn
Media innovation continues to evolve alongside AI, search, algorithmic distribution, audience habits, and the changing economics and politics of sports. Cruzata reminded us that sports journalism does not operate in isolation from the larger cultural landscape.
No organization can anticipate every shift. What matters is how people respond when something changes.
“You always have to be willing to learn.”
That statement stayed with us because it brings together the ideas Cruzata shared throughout our conversation. Innovation depends on understanding people, building trust, listening to audiences, and preparing teams to respond. These practices create room for new ideas while helping organizations navigate uncertainty effectively.
Technology will continue to change, and audiences will continue to find new ways to engage. Cruzata’s perspective suggests that the ability to learn together may be one of the most valuable capacities an organization can develop.