Elodie Mailliet works in a space where images are not just seen, but felt and acted on. She understands that a photograph is not only a record of what happened, but a tool that can shape how a community understands itself.

She is the CEO of CatchLight, a media organization focused on the future of visual storytelling and its role in a healthy public sphere.

Her path began in philosophy, an early interest in how people make meaning. She later moved to the United States and earned a master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern University, bringing that intellectual grounding into the practice of storytelling.

She spent more than a decade at Getty Images, where she rose to Senior Director of Content Partnerships. There, she worked at the intersection of editorial photography and a rapidly shifting digital landscape. She helped develop partnerships that expanded how images reach audiences, including grant programs with Instagram that supported photographers documenting underrepresented communities. It was early work in recognizing that distribution and support are as important as the image itself.

At CatchLight, her focus has sharpened around one of the most urgent challenges in media. The collapse of local news. Rather than treating it as an abstract problem, she has built programs that embed visual journalists directly into local newsrooms. The idea is straightforward and ambitious at the same time. That deep, sustained visual reporting can reconnect audiences to the stories that matter in their own communities, and in doing so, help rebuild trust.

She is clear about the moment we are in. We are surrounded by images, but not always by meaning. More pictures alone do not help. What matters is intention. Context. The ability of an image to carry understanding rather than just attention.

Elodie speaks often about the responsibility that comes with this work. Images shape perception. They influence what people believe, what they value, what they choose to act on. That power requires care, but also infrastructure. Photographers need support. Newsrooms need models that allow this kind of work to exist over time.

What stands out is the way she moves between ideas and execution. Thoughtful about ethics, but equally focused on systems. How to fund the work. How to distribute it. How to ensure it reaches the people it is meant to serve.

She believes that if you give a storyteller the right conditions, they can change how a community sees itself. It is a belief she is actively building toward, one newsroom, one photographer, one story at a time.