Editorial Strategist, Professor & Entrepreneurial Leader in New York

My education includes a master’s from Columbia University as a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at the graduate schools of business and journalism. I completed an Executive MBA at The Berlin School of Creative Leadership at Steinbeis University in Germany. I lived in Germany from 2011-2013, as a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow and as a European Journalism Fellow at Freie Universität in Berlin. I obtained a bachelor’s in political science and minors in classics and mass communications at The University of South Dakota, where I graduated as a thesis scholar and an Al Neuharth full-tuition scholarship recipient.

My research and writing interests include the startup economy/technology innovation; journalism ethics and history/the new journalists; urban planning/transportation; Europe/Germany/Scandinavia; religion in public life; parenthood/fatherhood; creativity in leadership and media entrepreneurship. I enjoy surfing, reading and traveling with my family.

Journalist

Most recently, I was a senior editor at CNN Business, overseeing companies coverage (including sectors such as technology, retail, autos and food). Earlier, I spent 10 years as a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal, covering a variety of beats including technology, health & science, travel, metals & mining and finance. I’ve written thousands of stories for countless publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, TheNewYorker.com, The Associated Press, Der Spiegel, The Indianapolis Star, FastCompany.com, ESPN.com, USA Today, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, The American Legion, Christianity Today, Newsweek and Forbes.com. I've appeared on international TV and radio programs including CNBC, Fox Business, Infobae, All India Radio and WSJ Radio. I’ve received numerous journalism awards from organizations such as the Overseas Press Club, the Scripps Howard Foundation, the Freedom Forum, Editor & Publisher, Religion News Association, SABEW, College Media Advisers, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Press Club of Long Island. Some of my favorite stories led me to expose a $100 billion investment fund hidden inside the LDS Church, discover lost relatives in Sweden, explore invasive species underwater in Florida, venture onto the gun range to understand why more American men are packing heat when they go to church, experience Warren Buffett’s Omaha with visitors from China, uncover Google’s strategy to gobble up university town talent, explain the rise of steel industry billionaires like Lakshmi Mittal or the fall of great companies like General Electric.

Professor

Currently, I’m an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where I serve as a master’s thesis advisor. As a full professor at The King’s College in NYC between 2013 to 2023 (before the school’s collapse in 2023), I founded and directed the McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute, I served as founder and program chair for the Journalism, Culture & Society program and major, co-advised the award-winning student journalism platforms (The Empire State Tribune) and founded and co-directed the NYC Semester in Journalism (NYCJ) program. I directed the business reporting program for the Dow Jones News Fund from 2017 to 2023 and its training program at New York University. In the spring of 2018, I served as the Laventhol / Newsday Visiting Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, serving as lead professor for the capstone M.A. Seminar in Business. I spoke regularly at high school and college journalism conferences nationwide and to wide-ranging audiences, from ethical technology summits to foreign policy organizations. My core speaking topics include narrative non-fiction / feature writing, business reporting, religion reporting, opinion writing and entrepreneurship in journalism.

Entrepreneur

I served as executive director of The Media Project, a non-profit training organization for international journalists and the co-founder and executive editor of its award-winning ReligionUnplugged.com online magazine, which won numerous EPPY awards in recent years from Editor & Publisher and honors from Religion News Association, SABEW, EPA and other organizations. I have raised more than $7 million in grant funding from more than two dozen donors and foundations (including Knight Foundation, Acton Institute, Google News Equity, INN / NewsMatch, Fieldstead & Co. and Koch Foundation). I’ve established dozens of national and international partnerships and revenue-generating programs. I am also founder and CEO of a startup called VettNews.com, which received a grant from Knight Foundation to build the Cx product used in 30 newsrooms, which was part of the NYC Media Lab’s Combine accelerator in the Spring of 2019 and the Batchery accelerator in 2022. I’ve led all internal and external marketing and communications efforts for these organizations.