Jodie Valade is a former Planning and Enterprise Editor at The Charlotte Observer. She has also worked at WFAE as a digital editor, and freelanced for publications such as The Athletic, The Washington Post and The New York Times. She was a longtime, award-winning sports features and enterprise reporter at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio. She also worked at The Dallas Morning News covering the Dallas Mavericks — where she became Mark Cuban’s lifelong email pen pal — and at The Kansas City Star.