AwesomeBox® by The Muse Factory is an online collaboration platform for groups to co-create physical, personalized, “social gifts” for key life events such as birthdays, graduations and weddings. We bring together friends and family to share photos and messages, which we turn into a boxset of up to 100 beautiful cards to tell someone they’re awesome. Online, AwesomeBox includes music dedications.Companies as varied as Genentech, Google and Eli Lilly have used it for annual sales meetings, work anniversaries and retirements. Our platform enables large-scale collaboration. For example, CarMax’s 20,000 associates collaborate a retirement box for their outgoing CEO.My role:• Raised $1.2M from angel and institutional investors.• Recruited top-tier team with experience from Microsoft, Deloitte, Genentech and CreativeLive.• Structured a capital-efficient, high-margin business model that achieved a high AOV.• Sold to corporate clients such as Google, The Gap, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Fidelity, CarMax, Cisco and Facebook.• Oversaw day-to-day business operations, including design, engineering, manufacturing, shipping and logistics, supply chain management, hiring, and customer support. Negotiated manufacturing agreements and oversaw production systems integration.

• Built a new type of product (highly-emotional social gifts) through "design thinking" that combined digital, creative and social tools to meet users' unique needs in gift giving.• Managed cross-functional teams in design, engineering (in-house & off-shore) and marketing to develop and execute the product roadmap through launch and growth.• Built and shipped a social-by-design product that achieved high virality and bottom-of-the-funnel conversion (85%).• Mobile: built a responsive-design web app for use across multiple platforms and devices.

A storytelling project that has become a Harvard tradition over nearly two decades. Exhibits, books and online galleries have featured medium-format photographs of 700 students with their essays responding to the last line of a Mary Oliver poem, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” See http://bit.ly/FortuneStory• The project has become one of the most successful marketing and recruitment programs for Harvard Business School. Over half of MBA candidates are more likely to choose HBS after seeing The Portrait Project, according to one survey.• The project is integrated into HBS's required curriculum for all students as bookends to their MBA education. It kicks off the curriculum in the first semester and is a key part of "Bridges" during the last weeks of classes before they graduate. As a result, every year nearly two thousand future business leaders use the project to reflect on the purpose and direction of their lives.• VANITY FAIR claimed The Portrait Project helped make Mary Oliver's poem, The Summer Day, “an American sensation” and helped the business world discover it. See Mary Oliver obituary.• With these portraits, Tony has become the most exhibited artist on the walls of Harvard University.See all portraits since 2002 at http://www.hbs.edu/PortraitProject

Created a meme that has engaged over two million people — from Google, Banana Republic, and Twitter execs to high school students, grassroots leaders and people worldwide — to answer the question: “Why do you do what you do?" According to WIRED Magazine, "In Silicon Valley, that question has become the hottest team-building meme since Outward Bound—and it's spreading."

Used design-thinking to identify and evaluate venture ideas at Eric Schmidt's VC firm.• Conducted industry scans and search for large markets with opportunities for innovation, resulting in a focus on gift giving.• Uncovered gift givers unmet needs with design-thinking fieldwork and 100s of interviews.• Identified great ideas, prototyped dozens of solutions, validated and tested to chose one to launch.• Our innovation process led to AwesomeBox, which achieved strong product-market fit.

Strategy and innovation lab focused on how media, technology & business shape culture.• THE BIG THAW — CHARTING A NEW FUTURE FOR JOURNALISMLed a future scenario and strategy project for a consortium of 45 leading U.S. independent media organizations. Identified game-changers, new business models, leading innovations for the future. Authored a book with a comprehensive analysis of the new digital landscape with a strategy guide to help media organizations adapt. TheBigThaw.com• HACKS/HACKERS UNITE! Organizing team for the first-of-a-kind DevCamp bringing together 90 journalists and software programmers to create iPad news apps. (hosted by KQED, May 2010)• CONSULTANT & ADVISOR for the Knight Foundation's journalism innovation grantees.• SPEAKING engagements on future of journalism:Stanford's Innovation Journalism Program, UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism, Visual Journalism Bootcamp and Ashoka's Future Forum.• LEADERSHIP TRAININGSClients: Google, Banana Republic, The Gap Inc., Kellogg Foundation, Echoing Green Foundation, Storify, UCLA and more.• RESEARCHAuthored case studies of emerging online business-models featuring Brightcove, Mother Jones, Sierra Club and AlterNet. Client: Democracy Alliance (investor) to create a New Media Venture Fund.• FUTURE OF GREEN BUILDING Led a future scenario and strategy project for U.S. Green Building Council.

Active Voice Labs grew out of the popular PBS independent-film series, “POV,” and now runs national public-policy engagement campaigns for television and theatrical films.

The leading national association for "social enterprise" (double/triple bottom-line businesses).Co-chaired Development & Public Policy Committees.Organized, “Hybrid Organizations” with the Aspen Institute.

KaBOOM! is America's leading provider of community-built playgrounds and skate parks that was featured as an episode of NBC's "Parks and Recreation" (clip below). KaBOOM! has built over 3,000 playgrounds with over 275 corporate partners such as The Home Depot, Pepsi, Sprint, Nike, Target and Disney.• Built growth strategy, which doubled revenue to $20M and tripled impact in 18 months.• Led $5 million investment deal from Pierre and Pam Omidyar, eBay founders.• Created a national city-based, citizen-engagement platform called “Playful Cities USA” (now in 258 cities and towns) and helped launch KaBOOM!’s online social-networking platform.• Designed and implemented company-wide results measurement system for managers to make data-driven decisions. The framework and system became a subject of a Harvard Business School case study for teaching MBA and executive-education classes.

Served in operational, strategy and business development roles for clients such as:• MONITOR INSTITUTE, a Deloitte company, leverages private-sector resources to solve complex social problems. MY ROLE: Began knowledge-creation agenda. Designed tools to diagnose and solve clients’ organizational and product challenges.• EXPANSION CAPITAL PARTNERS, a clean-technology venture capital firm.MY ROLE: Developed investor-relations system and managed deals pipeline.• BALLISTIC ENTERTAINMENT, a startup to create video-game platform based on new music.MY ROLE: Developed venture with founder including business, financial and marketing plans.

Fellowship awarded for “significant talent in the fields of Technology, Entertainment or Design”

Built and grew an organization that used media arts to promote youth culture, media literacy and civic-engagement skills for young people.• Led innovation, product design, planning, execution, business development and day-to-day operations with a 17-person team encompassing all aspects of running an organization and product lifecycles. • Raised $3.4 million from Time Warner, Levi Strauss, Reebok, Ford, Kellogg and Surdna Foundations, Lotus Development Corporation and Atlantic Philanthropies. Negotiated sponsorship agreements. Initiated, managed and grew the relationships and partnerships.• Produced “Campus Diversity Summit,” a four-week national college multi-media event.› Produced award-winning event held live with 10,000 students at 92 schools.› Developed marketing plan and partnerships with universities nationwide.• Created "ISM" and partnered with 25 universities nationwide to establish a leadership & diversity curriculum that utilized video and new media tools in the classroom.› Led prodcut development and impact evaluation to build first product of its kind in the U.S.› Selected by the White House as a national best practice in diversity education.› Managed investment decisions to fund 25 colleges, negotiated partner contracts and ran site-visits.› Designed and ran faculty-training institutes and facilitated large-group conferences.• Executive Producer, “My So-Called Community,” a fim about kids and diversity directed by Academy Award® Nominee Frances Reid and funded by the Ford Foundation.• Launched “Youth Voice Radio,” the first digital recording studio for teens in NC to produce original music and spoken word.

Co-taught Public Policy/History course with Pulitzer-Prize winning author Robert Coles as part of Duke's Center for Documentary Studies.