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Nabiha Syed

The Markup

Nabiha Syed is the Chief Executive Officer of The Markup, an award-winning media startup that challenges technology to serve the public good.  

Syed has tackled First Amendment issues at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; represented asylum-seekers in South Texas; counseled on whether to publish hacked material; and advised two presidents on free speech in the digital age. For her work, Syed was recognized by the NAACP as a digital civil rights leader in 2023, and by Fast Company for leading a "most innovative" nonprofit in 2022.
 
Nabiha has been described as “one of the best emerging free speech lawyers” by Forbes magazine. Prior to The Markup, as BuzzFeed's first newsroom lawyer, she oversaw high-stakes litigation, including the "Steele Dossier" litigation, as well as select international, security, and cross-company strategic initiatives. Prior to that, she was a lawyer at Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz and a First Amendment Fellow at The New York Times.

She holds a law degree from Yale Law School and from Balliol College, Oxford University, which she attended as a Marshall Scholar.