Stephen Merrill Email & Phone Number

San Rafael, Ca, Us

Head of editorial, art, product, and marketing divisions.

San Rafael, Ca, Us

Head of the editorial, media, and creative teams and also oversee media product development. Currently lead a 20+ person team—including editorial, social, art, video, newsletter, and user experience. Oversaw a reorganization/realignment of the media unit; established new editorial standards and processes; developed high-performing new content franchises and formats for video, text, and social media; expanded areas of coverage and grew staff accordingly; and oversaw the creation of both internal and external teams of professional journalists and creatives who contribute to outlets like the Atlantic, NPR, the Week, and the New York Times. Worked tightly with the UX and engineering teams on the latest site/app modernization efforts: Led the definition of editorial product needs, and consulted on responsive design efforts, new flows, voice and tone work, and the prioritization of a product road map. Continue to conceive of, edit, write and otherwise create content—my own, and others'.

California, Ca, Us

Boastable was a mobile publishing platform for travelers. I defined the product vision from the ground up with a small team. Users could publish your travel story to your private feed, or use our tools at any time to create cool trip announcements, track and share real-time travel statistics, and cross-publish your photos seamlessly to social networks like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram. You could view your life in travel—all your memories in advanced, searchable interfaces—on any device, from anywhere, forever.

Hartford, Connecticut, Us

Owned the product and media strategy for a startup in the health and wellness space. Hired and managed a 7-person team of creatives and developers to prototype, test, and build a responsive web-to-mobile product. Identified and reached media licensing agreements with several leading publishers in health and wellness, like Time, Inc., and Meredith. Aetna’s Wellness 2.0 was part of Aetna's startup incubator—all nascent businesses were shuttered in 2014 as part of a corporate-wide strategy to focus on the core insurance business.

New York, Us

Editor in Chief and GM with digital P&L responsibility. Owned the digital product road map including feature definition, development, and UX. Also headed editorial strategy and oversaw the editorial calendar. Added head count to the editorial team and streamlined the editorial operations—with a focus on establishing a distinct, compelling voice and upgrading the pace and quality of content. Created a comprehensive digital calendar and worked with sales and marketing to integrate it into the sales cycle.Established channel strategies for distributing content to drive growth across critical KPIs, leveraging partnerships, newsletters, social channels, blogs, and SEO/SEM campaigns. Negotiated licensing deals with major partners like Yahoo!, MSN, MSNBC, and CNN. Conducted vendor searches and negotiated contracts with third-party providers, from email service providers (ESPs) to video management. Oversaw 5.5x growth of website page views from 2m/month to 11m/month, doubling of unique visitors, and dramatic improvements in time on site and other loyalty metrics over almost 4 years.

Oversaw content and media product strategy/design as head of the editorial and media product teams. Identified new content opportunities, functionality upgrades, and design and UX requirements for a network of active sports websites. Managed departmental budget, establishing expense lines and cost-effective growth strategies. Vetted, signed, and managed third-party vendors for video management and newsletter management (ESPs).

Boulder, Colorado, Us

Head of content strategy, editorial development, and media product design for Outside magazine, a 3-time National Magazine Award winner which was part of the Away Network (purchased by Orbitz/Cendant in 2004). Established editorial standards and processes, assigned and edited stories, and oversaw major product initiatives. Hired and managed a 15-person team of creatives, producers, writers, and editors. Evaluated the viability and costs of major product initiatives, and led a series of product upgrades. Managed the design, editorial, and production components of major company mergers and partnerships: MSN.com partnership, Outside magazine merger, Discovery.com integration, GORP.com acquisition.

Atlanta, Us

Worked with editors to select stories for publication on CNN.com. Created full asset-list for assigned stories: identified, produced, or assigned required audio, video, and photo resources. Fact-checked story elements to ensure reporting accuracy, and edited and wrote as needed.

West Hollywood, Ca, Us

Wrote cultural, hotel, travel, and event reviews for Atlanta’s CitySearch.com, and freelanced at various outlets in education curriculum and culture and news.