Erin Millar

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada · CEO and Co-founder, Indiegraf · Founder, The Discourse

Career

Erin Millar is a Vancouver-based journalist and entrepreneur. She founded The Discourse (originally Discourse Media) in 2014 and later co-founded Indiegraf, a software and services company that provides publishing infrastructure to independent local news outlets across North America. She began her career as a journalist, working as a digital contributor editor at Maclean's magazine, contributing to the Globe and Mail, CBC, Nieman Lab, and other publications, and reporting from more than a dozen countries.

In 2014 she launched Discourse Media with the goal of serving communities whose information needs were not being met by existing local news outlets. The organization developed an engagement-driven reporting model and grew into a network of community news outlets across British Columbia. Co-founded with her sister Caitlin Havlak, a quantitative environmental scientist and programmer, Discourse Media evolved over time into publishing tools that could could serve a wider network of independent publishers. That led to the launch of Indiegraf as a separate platform, designed to let journalists launch a modern news outlet rapidly. As of 2025, Indiegraf serves approximately 180 local communities across North America.

The transition from newsroom to infrastructure company also involved stepping back from editorial operations at The Discourse and, for a period, serving as CEO of IndigiNews before Eden Fineday's tâpwêwin media acquired the outlet in 2025 and took it to full Indigenous ownership. Millar has described this arc — founding a newsroom, finding its tools more scalable than its editorial model, pivoting to infrastructure — as the core of her theory of change for local news: that lowering the barrier to media ownership, rather than building more news organizations directly, produces more durable outcomes.

Millar chairs the Canadian Journalism Collective, a nonprofit established to distribute a $100 million annual fund from Google to support sustainability and innovation in the Canadian news sector — a significant position in the Canadian media policy landscape. She co-founded two additional organizations: Press Forward Canada, an industry association of independent media in Canada (distinct from the US-based Press Forward initiative spearheaded by the MacArthur Foundation), and C4C Canada (Columnists for Change), a charity focused on amplifying underrepresented voices. Her newsletter, Her Startup Life, documents the experience of leading a mission-driven startup.

Prior Roles and Organizations

Indiegraf

CEO and Co-founder (current) · publishing platform for independent local news, serving ~180 communities across North America

Canadian Journalism Collective

Chair · nonprofit distributing Google's $100M annual Canadian news fund

The Discourse / Discourse Media

Founder and CEO (2014–c.2021) · solutions-focused community news; evolved into IndigiNews network

IndigiNews

Former CEO · prior to acquisition by tâpwêwin media (Eden Fineday) in January 2025

Press Forward Canada

Co-founder · Canadian independent media industry association (distinct from the US-based Press Forward initiative spearheaded by MacArthur Foundation)

C4C Canada

Co-founder · charity amplifying underrepresented voices in media

Maclean's

Digital Contributor Editor (former)

Quest University Canada

Journalist-in-Residence and Visiting Journalism Instructor (former)

Journalism Publications (selected)

Globe and MailMaclean'sCBCNieman LabReader's Digest CanadaPolicy OptionsJ-SourceBCBusiness

Recognition

2015

Bob Carty Fellow — Canadian Journalists for Free Expression

Fellowship recognizing journalism innovation.

2015

Storyteller-in-Residence — Ashoka Canada

Ashoka is a global nonprofit supporting social entrepreneurs.

n.d.

AmEx Emerging Innovator

American Express recognition program for emerging entrepreneurs in Canada.

Erin Millar · Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Indiegraf: indiegraf.com · CEO and Co-founder

Her Startup Life newsletter: herstartuplife.com

Canadian Journalism Collective: Chair

Bluesky (@eemillar.bsky.social)