“Ben Berkowitz has spent more than 25 years in the international media industry as a reporter, writer, copy editor, line editor, editor-in-chief, executive producer, photographer, head of product, head of brand and member of senior management teams. He’s worked in 16 newsrooms for eight companies in three countries in the digital, social, TV and wire service industries.”
That’s the formal bio. Some of the stuff I’ve actually accomplished, which might be of use to you or someone you know:
- Managed local, national and international newsrooms of 60+ people
- Managed union and non-union editorial teams
- Built editorial teams from scratch (hiring, style guides, editorial guidelines, etc.)
- Written training materials that became standards; rewrote part of the AP Stylebook
- Managed digital, wire and TV teams producing text, audio and video in 2 languages
- Took a team from third place in its market to No. 1, and bigger than Nos. 2-4 combined, within 5 years
- Written, and managed the release of, nationally distributed and published press releases and Op-Eds
- Created and executive produced daily local and national bilingual digital news programs
- Run a full-stack Product organization (PMs, POs, Agile ticketing, scrums, etc)
- Rebooted a Product organization with new Agile processes and to incorporate and launch BD functions
- Served as newsroom technical lead for 3 different newsrooms
- Used and tested nearly 30 different CMS platforms
- Run hiring processes for 100+ people across editorial, product, trust & safety and infosec
- Posted 10 straight years of double-digit traffic growth
- Columbia-duPont, AP, Local Media Assoc., NY State Broadcasters awards
- Negotiated contracts with vendors and investors
Whether it’s managing people, managing products, managing content, turning around newsrooms or turning around product organizations, I’ve done it all and with a decent bit of success.
My resume, for you more formal types:
Ben Berkowitz 