Speakers: DCN Subscription Innovation 2018

Ted is Director, Product at Consumer Reports, where he leads the non-profit organization’s digital product strategy on new services, advocacy, and mobile apps. Previously, he led the development of CR’s new membership program, which anchors the organization’s effort to build new revenue models, deepen its engagement with consumers, and drive positive change in the marketplace.

Ted has more than 20 years experience helping mission-driven organizations embrace change. He led the development of new community outreach programs at NYU Abu Dhabi, part of the university’s broader effort to build a global presence. Ted oversaw the national expansion of programs for MOUSE.org, a non-profit that empowers kids by building their tech skills and placing them in leadership roles in urban public schools. He helped launch Fathom.com, a pioneering online learning experiment at Columbia University that made courses and resources available before MOOCs became a part of the zeitgeist and New York Today, a city-guide from the New York Times. Earlier in his career, Ted served as an English Education Peace Corps Volunteer in Lithuania. He developed a passion for policy and politics as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill.

Ted earned his Masters in Public Administration at Columbia University and a B.A. in political science from Susquehanna University. He is a part-time doctoral student in Education and Communication Technology at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education, Culture and Human Development.

Jason Fox is the VP & Chief Digital Officer for Consumer Reports, the world’s largest and most trusted nonprofit, consumer organization. In this role he acts as the GM (with direct P&L responsibility) for CR's $100+ million digital business, including cr.org, which has 2.9 million paying members and has been called “the most successful online content business.” (Poynter, Jan 2016).

Prior to joining CR, Jason was global head of product for Reuters, the world's leading news agency. At Reuters, he oversaw a global staff of commercially-focused product teams responsible for managing and creating a diverse portfolio of B2B media products for customers like Yahoo, Microsoft, NBC, BBC, CNN, Vice, and hundreds more.

Before Reuters, Jason was at Time Inc, the world's largest magazine publisher. There he led digital product strategy and business development for the News Group (CNN Money, Time, Fortune). He also served as VP, Product and Business Operations, for the award-winning LIFE.com, and on many other initiatives across Time Inc.

Earlier in his career, Jason held a number of progressively responsible digital roles at Columbia University, News Corporation, and PBS. He started at the CBC.

Over the years, his products have won multiple Webby Awards, Folio Awards, Min Awards, an American Society of Magazine Editors' Award, the Association of American Publishers Award, and many others.

Jason also holds a Master of Arts Degree, certificates from Harvard and Dartmouth business schools, and has taught at three universities. He is also a former eBay PowerSeller and Top-Rated Seller. In addition, Jason has helped establish several start-ups and advised many.

Miki King is Vice President, Marketing at The Washington Post, where she oversees subscription and new product marketing, branding and business development. Since joining The Washington Post in early 2016, Miki has led the team to drive digital subscription growth by more than 200%, focusing on both subscriber retention and engagement as well as new subscriber acquisition.

With over 15 years of experience in building and leading high performing growth teams, Miki’s expertise is in managing critical client relationships, fostering stakeholder buy-in and innovating functional operations. Prior to joining The Washington Post, Miki was Executive Vice President, Operations at Politico, where she launched the company’s first paid subscription product, POLITICO Pro, created the organization’s talent acquisition team and spearheaded the company’s community engagement initiatives.

Miki began her career by leading business development and marketing teams at The Advisory Board Company. She also practiced as a contract litigation attorney at Seeger, Faughnan, Mendocino, PC before serving as Director of Business Development for the Health Care practice of the law firm of Manatt, Phelps and Philips.

Miki holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a JD from George Mason University School of Law and was admitted to the Virginia State Bar in 2007. Miki is on the Board of Directors of the International Women’s Media Foundation, which is dedicated to strengthening the role of women journalists worldwide. She also serves on the Corporate Advisory Board for So Others Might Eat, a community-based organization committed to helping the poor and homeless of our nation’s capital.

Miki appeared in Digiday’s 2018 class of Changemakers, honoring those modernizing media and marketing by rethinking the status quo, challenging conventional wisdom and raising the bar.

Miki lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two sons.

In her role as editorial director, Michelle Manafy is responsible for the DCN’s content-related initiatives, including our InContext site and annual member summit, as well as evangelizing industry best-practices in a wide range of venues. She has two decades of publishing experience, more than half of which has been focused squarely on the business of digital content.

Her career has included leadership roles at the Media Industry Newsletter (min), where she concentrated on digital strategies and revenue channels for the magazine media; UK-based digital publisher FreePint Limited, where she focused on the enterprise information industry; and Information Today, Inc.‘s Enterprise Group, where she provided content direction on publications and events in the areas of content creation, management and delivery strategies and tools, enterprise search, and the business of content.

Michelle also has extensive knowledge on millennials and “digital natives,” having co-written the book Dancing with Digital Natives: Staying in Step with the Generation That’s Transforming the Way Business Is Done. She is also a regular columnist at Inc.com. Michelle is a lively and informative industry writer and speaker and holds a BA in journalism from San Francisco State University.

Shauna Plesmid is the Manager for Digital Marketing, Acquisition at The Washington Post, where she oversees subscription marketing efforts on the publication’s website, apps and offsite properties, including social media, display ads and partnerships. Since joining The Washington Post in late 2016, Shauna has played a key role in helping to drive digital
subscription growth by more than 200%, focusing on new subscriber acquisition. With over five years of experience in digital marketing spanning across the retail and publishing industries, Shauna’s expertise lies in testing and analyzing new acquisition strategies to drive engagement with new Washington Post readers and to drive subscriptions among its existing readers.

Shauna began her career at Fierce Markets, a small, DC-based digital media company, where she managed marketing and ad operations. Before joining The Washington Post, Shauna most recently worked for Whereoware, a digital agency specializing in email marketing, SEO optimization and web and app design and development.

Shauna holds a bachelor’s degree from James Madison University, where she majored in Political Science and minored in Political Communications.

Shauna lives in Northern Virginia and is an exercise enthusiast and fitness instructor.

Matt Skibinski has been helping news publishers succeed at generating digital subscriptions since 2009. Matt served for five years as head of publisher success for Press+ and Piano Media, helping oversee the two companies' successful merger. In that role, Matt worked with publishers to advise them on their strategies for launching successful digital subscription efforts using the metered model, compiling data, best practices, and learnings from across the industry to produce the most detailed set of benchmarks, data-backed insights, and case studies to date on the topic of digital subscriptions for news. After leaving Press+ in 2015, Matt has consulted with a wide range of news brands to optimize their digital subscription efforts, such as the Dallas Morning News, the Philadelphia Iquirer, ALM, Business Insider, and others. In 2016 Matt joined the The Lenfest Institute's team as a consultant focused on digital subscription initiatives. In that capacity, he was a coach and co-designer of the Facebook Local News Accelerator in 2018.

An award-winning expert in omni-channel marketing, consumer insights, and digital platforms, Kimberly Stehle joined CR in 2016 as Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer. In this role, Kim leads the organization’s marketing strategy with a focus on creative and innovative brand positioning that seeks to give voice and choice to consumers. She oversees CR’s relationships with consumers across all channels and touchpoints, including digital, print, customer care, and research, along with her responsibility for revenue associated with membership, fundraising, subscription, and newsstand sales.

Before joining Consumer Reports, Kim served as the Vice President of Digital Marketing for the J.Crew Group LLC., where she was responsible for global digital marketing strategy, P&L, e-commerce, and mobile, social, and local campaigns. At J.Crew, Kim developed the organization’s first digital personalization strategy and launched an innovative audience segmentation approach that resulted in significant increases in customer engagement and sales. Prior to that, Kim was Vice President, Consumer Marketing at Time Inc., with tenure on the company’s premier media brands, including People, Real Simple, and Fortune.

Kim earned her B.A. in marketing and marketing management from Binghamton University and her MBA from Columbia University.

Jon Steinberg is the founder and CEO of Cheddar, the leading Post Cable Network. Cheddar is live 8 hours a day broadcasting from the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, the glass corner of the Flatiron Building inside the Sprint store, Los Angeles, and the White House. It is available on Sling TV, Amazon, Philo, Twitter, Pluto TV, Twitch, Comcast X1, and 60% of smart TVs in the U.S.

Steinberg sits on the board of Bustle and is an advisor to TheSkimm and Taboola.

He was most recently the Chief Executive Officer of DailyMail.com North America. Steinberg grew U.S. revenue 45% while at Daily Mail and doubled direct advertising revenue.

He joined DailyMail.com from BuzzFeed where he was President & Chief Operating Officer, responsible for business management, company operations, finance, and social advertising operations from 2010 to 2014. Under his leadership, BuzzFeed became a global and profitable social advertising business working with over half of the top 100 brands. He grew the company from 15 employees to over 500. In 2012, Steinberg was named one of AdAge’s Media Mavens.

Steinberg was previously Strategic Partner Development Manager on Google’s SMB (small medium business) partnerships team. As a high schooler, he was an intern in Walt Disney Imagineering’s research and development group.

Steinberg is a graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University. He sits on the board of Temple Israel. He lives with his wife, two little kids, and cat on New York’s Upper East Side.

Christy Tanner is the Executive Vice President and General Manager of CBS News Digital. In this role, she oversees CBS News on all digital platforms, including CBSN, CBS News’ digital streaming news network featuring live, anchored coverage across platforms, as well as CBSNews.com, mobile apps and OTT apps.

Under Tanner’s leadership, CBSN has delivered tremendous growth, drawing an audience with an average age of 38 and delivering more than 280 million live streams in 2017, up 17% from 2016. In addition, CBSNews.com continues to reach an even greater audience, with unique visitors up 20% year-over-year during 2017.

During her tenure at CBS News Digital, Tanner has spearheaded the growth of the CBSN Originals documentary series and continually expanded distribution to make CBSN available on every major platform.

Formerly, Tanner was the Senior Vice President and General Manager of CBS Interactive Media, a group of premier entertainment brands. Tanner joined CBS Interactive through the company’s acquisition of TV Guide Digital, where as CEO she transformed the business for an on-demand, streaming audience. She previously held executive positions with The Washington Post Company, Wolters Kluwer and Reed Elsevier.

Tanner currently is co-chair of Digital Content Next, the leading trade organization serving premium digital content companies, and is chair of the Groton Women’s Network.

John Wiley is a data scientist at The Wall Street Journal, where he manages a team focused on applying predictive analytics in the Journal’s membership business. In collaboration with the Journal’s Product, Design, & Engineering (PDE) team, he helped develop a suite of machine learning applications enabling the dynamic targeting of paywall experiences based on a reader’s probability of subscribing. The project was recognized by the International News Media Association (INMA) as the Best New Paid Content or Subscriber Initiative by a global publisher in 2018. John holds a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems and Business Analytics from Boston College’s Carroll School of Management.

DCN Subscription Innovation Speakers

DCN Subscription Innovation

Speakers