Leela de Kretser is the Editorial Director and Publisher at DNAinfo. She was part of the original New York launch team in 2009, and served as the city’s managing editor before her current position.

A veteran print and online journalist, Leela is in charge of the editorial  operations at DNAinfo.com in both New York and Chicago. She oversees teams of journalists who are devoted to making sure locals get the neighborhood news and information they want.

Leela comes to us from Newser.com, an online news aggregator. Before that, she worked with Michael Wolff on a biography about Rupert Murdoch. In between turning interviews with the world’s most powerful media mogul into a book, she found time to have a baby who thinks New York is one giant playground created especially for him.

Leela began her journalism career in Melbourne, Australia, on the country's largest daily newspaper, the Herald Sun. In 2005, having completed J-School at Columbia, she started at the New York Post.

She lives in the East Village with her husband and son, but has been spending a lot of time in River North since DNAinfo.com Chicago launched.

Fun Fact: It took two hours with a professional make-up artist, and another three hours with a photographic genius, to produce the profile shot above and she still doesn't like it.