Northside Festival is right around the corner- four weeks away, to be exact. As we gear up for our best innovation lineup yet, we’ll be giving you a weekly roundup of this year’s exciting speakers. This week, we’re giving you a look at Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith, Lauren Reddy of The New York Times, and Yanna Wilson-Fischer of The Economist.
Ben Smith, Buzzfeed
Ben Smith is BuzzFeed’s Editor-in- Chief. Since joining the company in January 2012, Smith has built a newsroom of over 300 reporters and editors, led expansion of over 20 content verticals, and built teams across the world. Under his leadership, BuzzFeed’s coverage has grown to include politics, business, investigative reporting, longform journalism, and entertainment while growing the site’s traffic to over 200M monthly unique visitors. Smith was called “one of the most talented and admired scoop-mongers in the game” by The New Republic, named one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business,” and featured as Fortune’s “40 Under 40” for his work at BuzzFeed. Prior to BuzzFeed, Smith was senior political writer for Politico from 2007 to 2011. Before Politico, he wrote a column and a blog for the New York Daily News, started New York’s first political blog, The Politicker, for the New York Observer, as well as the political site, Room Eight, after working as City Hall Bureau Chief for the New York Sun and as a stringer for the Wall Street Journal in Latvia. Smith has written for publications including the Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, The New York Post, and The New Republic.
Lauren Reddy, The New York Times
Lauren Reddy is the Director of Audience Development & Insights within the Advertising team at The New York Times where she leads content distribution, measurement, performance, and social strategy for T Brand Studio. Prior to joining the Times, she worked across editorial, marketing, and advertising teams at Time Out and The Huffington Post, focusing on content strategy, social media, and analytics.
Yanna Wilson-Fischer, The Economist
Yanna Wilson-Fischer joined The Economist in February 2016, spearheading North American acquisitions for real world marketing channels including experiential events, brand partnerships, subscription agents, and other core offline channels. Under her leadership as Director, North American marketing and global experiential, The Economist surpassed North American 2016-17 offline subscription targets by 21% and global experiential subscriptions by over 30% YOY. This year, she will continue to spearhead significant subscription growth for the market with brand’s largest marketing investment in North America to date. Prior to joining The Economist, Yanna lead the media division at Digital Brand Architects, where she worked on influencer marketing, content creation, and large-scale experiential events for brands including Volvo, Toyota, and Tiffany & Co. Yanna is also a VICE alumni, where she developed key business relationships with licensing brands such as Kellwood Company and Iconix Brand Group.
Stay tuned as we continue to profile these high-profile speakers!
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