How I got here
From a Rolling Stone to Cosmo Guy to Glamour boy and beyond
The famous cover wall at Rolling Stone’s old offices at 1290 Sixth Avenue in New York. Photographed in 2010 by Kirby Calvario for the December 2010-January 2011 issue of the Philippine monthly Rogue for a feature on Filipino Americans in media.
My career has been shaped by one consistent throughline: building ambitious, culturally relevant content operations that take ideas seriously—whether the audience is millions of readers or a room full of senior leaders.
I came up through legacy media at a moment when scale still mattered, editorial judgment was the product, and execution had to be airtight. Senior leadership roles at Rolling Stone, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Us Weekly, and Martha Stewart Living placed me at the center of high-velocity newsrooms and global consumer brands navigating rapid change.
As Deputy Managing Editor of Rolling Stone, I oversaw editorial operations across print and digital, partnered closely with the publisher and business teams, and top-edited major special projects—including the best-selling special-interest publication “The Beatles: 100 Greatest Songs.”
At Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Seventeen, my remit expanded beyond building and running creative operations—hiring and leading teams, aligning editorial and business stakeholders, managing complex production pipelines, and making judgment calls that shaped identity and trust—into brand extension and franchise-level storytelling. I helped develop and executive produce projects designed to live across print, digital, video, live experiences, and brand partnerships long before “multiplatform” became a mandate.
So when Ad Age’s leadership asked if I would consider overseeing its creative studio, I saw the move as the culmination of decades of newsroom leadership, executive production experience, and brand-level storytelling into a space that demanded all three. The goal wasn’t simply to make sponsored content better. It was to prove that it could be held to the same standards as real journalism.
That belief became the foundation for everything that has followed.
The work
From 2018 to 2025, I oversaw all custom content produced by Ad Age’s creative studio across the brand’s media channels, encompassing thought leadership articles, white papers, live and virtual firesides and panels, webcasts, video, and podcasts.
From left: Meta’s Julie Hogan, Deepak Chopra, and Chopra Foundation CEO Poonacha Machaiah on The Pier at Meta Beach at The List’s 2025 Cannes Lions lunch.
Executive communities
In 2019, in partnership with Meta, I launched The List, a cohort of senior marketers—now some 200 members strong—gathered annually by Ad Age. In 2025, Revmatics and I selected 15 C-suite leaders from Fortune 500 brands to form the first-of-its-kind AI Advisory Council for CMOs.
Ad Age and Viral Nation’s VIP luncheon at the Business of Brands 2025 conference at the City Hall Event Space in Chicago.
Events
From Ad Age tentpoles like the Small Agency Conference and Business of Brands to industry gatherings like Cannes Lions, Advertising Week New York, and CES to virtual events on AdAge.com, I moderated over 200 firesides and panels, and published recap articles afterward.
From left: Spectrum Reach’s David Kline and John Dioso on MediaLink Beach at the 2024 Cannes Lions Festival of International Creativity.
Video, webcasts & podcasts
From on-location shoots at Ad Age and major industry events including Cannes Lions and ANA’s Masters of Marketing to in-studio webinars and podcasts, Studio 30 editors collaborated with brand partners including the Wall Street Journal, iSpot.tv, Comcast, Paramount, Amazon, and MNTN.
Thought leadership
During my tenure, Studio 30 published more than 800 Publishing Partner articles from 250 brands, including Google, Amazon, Meta, TikTok, Comcast, Salesforce, and Major League Soccer.
White papers
Since 2018, Studio 30 published more than 200 sponsored white papers, including 80 based on original reporting and research in collaboration with clients including DAC, Kantar, MLS, TransUnion, and Viral Nation.
Interactive reports
Studio 30’s interactive reports and sponsor hubs combine the thought leadership of Publishing Partners with the depth, research, and reporting of white papers, presented in a dynamic, multimedia format for brands including Influential, Amazon, and Instagram.
Case studies & trend reports
Before Ad Age adopted a hard-wall subscription model, Studio 30 produced monthly case studies and quarterly trend reports—non-sponsored content for premium subscribers. Many published as editorial features in Ad Age’s print editions.
