Matt Gross Email & Phone Number

I oversaw Sunset Magazine's digital wing: transforming its daily editorial flow, shoring up SEO content, managing product improvements, restructuring the staff, and pursuing revenue opportunities for both Sunset and its sibling publications under Regent LP.

• I help digital publications retool themselves to survive and thrive in the present day. My approach blends decades of editorial experience with deep immersion in technology and analytics—always with an eye toward a.
• Revamping editorial strategy, with attention to everything from rebranding and redesigning to social media, SEO, newsletters, video, and commerce
• Day-to-day production, including assigning, line-editing, and top-editing
• Staffing development, from hiring and restructuring to retraining and team-buildingClients include: Sunset Magazine, Rachael Ray Every Day Magazine, PannaCooking.com, and News Corp's Realtor.com.

Greater New York City Area

• Oversaw all digital aspects of America’s biggest running publication, from content strategy and daily news coverage to social media, commerce, apps, and video
• Launched new series with targeted revenue streams (e.g., affiliate commerce, advertising)
• Managed a team of 10 staffers, permalancers, and contract writers spread across five states
• Left due to layoffs following Rodale's purchase by Hearst

Greater New York City Area

• Oversaw content creation, messaging, and audience development for video-recipe startup backed by A+E Networks
• Hired and trained a new editorial team, develop house style guide and editorial calendar, and establish regular routines and daily/weekly/monthly KPIs
• Identified and recruiedt brand-appropriate chefs for video recipes and online classes
• Responsible for social media strategy (primarily Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest), including building and maintaining partnerships with like-minded brands
• Guided product development, on both web and iOS app, focusing on SEO and functionality

Greater New York City Area

Provided periodic advice to this video-recipe startup, including social media strategy, recipe selection, chef outreach, and overall messaging.

NYC And San Jose, CA

Over the course of a five-month contract, I mapped out and implemented a new editorial strategy for America's second-largest real estate website, a News Corp property. Targeting a wide swath of mainstream consumers, I began growing the bicoastal editorial team, oversaw a major redesign, improved and streamlined the implementation of WordPress, collaborated.

Greater Boston Area

Led editorial reinvention of large regional news site, from planning new story approaches and long-term strategy to overhauling the CMS and recruiting national talent.

Greater New York City Area

• Oversaw creation of all web content, from daily reported stories to monthly magazine features to long-term recipe projects
• Assigned work to my own staff, to writers and editors from the print side, and to a roster of freelancers, with a goal of publishing 8–12 pieces of content per day
• Guided ongoing redesigns, CMS improvements, social media strategy, SEO refinements
• Tripled traffic from 1.8 million UVs (October 2012) to 5.4 million UVs (August 2014)
• Built partnership with IBM to create Chef Watson with Bon Appétit cognitive-cooking app

One of the first masthead writers at Afar, I contributed a few feature stories and essays every year.

Greater New York City Area

With three other veteran journalists, I launched a website devoted to the trials and tribulations of being a father in New York City. By latching onto trending topics (e.g., baby yoga, political fights over children's books) and using social media, we grew a devoted reader base—one that even today, years after we stopped publishing, occasionally asks us to.

• Reinvented the “high style, low budget” series for a modern readership, writing over 150 columns and features both online and in print
• Self-produced at least 30 videos, winning Webbys in 2008 and 2009

Conceptualized, assigned, and edited features (both long-form and packages) and display copy for magazine targeted at traveling college students (circ. 150,000).

New York City

As an assistant editor on the copy desk, I was part of a small team responsible for copyediting and proofreading virtually all text that appeared in the magazine, from listings and captions to features. I was also the primary editor for the film and theater critics and the crossword puzzle, and I regularly wrote front-of-the-book items.

Greater New York City Area

Oversaw a team of a dozen editors and reporters covering breaking news for the Website.

Greater New York City Area

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Master Of Arts (M.A.), Writing Seminars

I nearly completed a math degree before realizing that I much preferred writing, film, languages, and travel, and focused on those instead.

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Writing Seminars