Matthew Iles is CEO at Civil. Our purpose is to advance trust and sustainability in journalism by building a more trusted web. Join our movement today. Matthew studied journalism at Duke University before embarking on an entrepreneurial career in digital marketing and innovative business modeling. He long imagined it possible to harness both the wildly explosive power of an open discourse platform along with the financial and behavioral incentives of a global cooperative, and first wrote about the concept behind Civil in November 2016. Beyond advocating for sustainable journalism, Matthew also believes deeply in evolutionary organizational methods over traditional command-and-control hierarchies. At Civil, Matthew and the team practice what he originally coined Synchronicity — a cascading, distributed leadership model predicated on vast common knowledge, continuous realignment and a deep appreciation for everyone's personal self-identity. He owes much of his career success to his wife and prior entrepreneurial partner Katie Iles. They live in Brooklyn with their dog Emma. When not working on Civil, Matthew enjoys reading science fiction, cooking and playing board games with Katie, and exploring New York City's and the Hudson Valley's best restaurants and bars.