Audrey Cooper is the editor in chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, the first woman to fill the role in the company’s 153-year history. She is also the youngest woman ever named as the top editor of a major U.S newspaper-based company.

San Francisco magazine has declared her 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.” She’s been featured in Cosmopolitan magazine “50 Fearless Women” issue and is a regular speaker and interviewer.

Under Audrey’s leadership,The Chronicle has emerged as one of the country’s most innovative media outlets. Among other things, she started an in-house incubator program to explore new types of digital journalism. She started the SF Homeless Project, a first-of-its-kind collaboration of more than 80 news outlets dedicated to reporting on solutions to end homelessness. And In 2016, The Chronicle became the first newspaper-based company to show a feature-length documentary in nearly a dozen film festivals around the world.

Audrey prioritizes investigative and explanatory journalism, and recently restarted her newsroom’s investigative team. Areas of emphasis have included the botched multibillion dollar rebuilding of the Bay Bridge, the deadly 2011 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion, the city’s forgotten AIDS survivors, and the criminalization of children in the state’s foster shelter program. This body of work led California’s leading newspaper association to name The Chronicle the state’s best large newspaper each year Audrey has been editor.

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 5-year-old son.

In her spare time, Audrey volunteers for San Francisco City Guides, a nonprofit that gives free walking tours of San Francisco.

Whether writing about politics or personalities, Phil Matier has informed and entertained readers for more than two decades about the always fascinating Bay Area and beyond. His blend of scoops, insights and investigative reporting can be found every Sunday, Monday and Wednesday in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Joe Garofoli is the San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer, covering national and state politics. He has worked at The Chronicle since 2000 and in Bay Area journalism since 1992, when he left the Milwaukee Journal. He is the host of “It’s All Political,” The Chronicle’s political podcast.

He has won numerous awards and covered everything from fashion to the Jeffrey Dahmer serial killings to two Olympic Games to his own vasectomy — which he discussed on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” after being told he couldn’t say the word “balls” on the air. He regularly appears on Bay Area radio and TV talking politics and is available to entertain at bar mitzvahs and First Communions. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and a proud native of Pittsburgh. Go Steelers!

Heather Knight is a columnist working out of City Hall and covering everything from politics to homelessness to family flight and the quirks of living in one of the most fascinating cities in the world. She believes in holding politicians accountable for their decisions or, often, lack thereof – and telling the stories of real people and their struggles.

The San Francisco Chronicle is the largest newspaper in Northern California and the second largest on the West Coast. Acquired by Hearst in 2000, the San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 by Charles and Michael de Young and has been awarded six Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence.

The Chronicle, available in print, online, e-edition, mobile app, and iPad, is committed to coverage of subjects that are uniquely important to our readers: local issues and those topics with national impact such as economy, politics, technology, ecology, as well as breaking news, crime, education, national and foreign news. Readers throughout the Bay Area understand that for coverage of the topics that matter most in their lives, the place to turn is the Chronicle and its sister site, SFGATE.

Launched in 1993, SFGATE provides a 360° view of San Francisco, wildly reflective of right now. Provocative, energetic, unapologetic, the GATE is in constant conversation with the world’s most eclectic city. SFGATE features breaking news updated throughout the day; staff blogs; reader forums; photo galleries; video; up-to-the-minute sports scoreboards; as well as real estate, classified, jobs and recruitment, and auto databases. Combined, the San Francisco Chronicle and SFGATE reach over 30 million users each month.