I find the line that makes people care about an idea.
I lead editorial strategy and voice for big audiences. Most recently, as Director of Publishing & Social for 
, I set the direction for TED Talks, originals, podcasts and more across TED.com, newsletters, YouTube and social.
My experience sits where editorial standards meet audience strategy. I use performance data to sharpen judgment and AI to supercharge the work.
Writing
Wonder in a complex world: Day 4 of TED2026
TED finds its next stage in San Diego
Is geoengineering a good idea? A brief Q&A with Kelly Wanser and Tim Flannery
I direct publishing strategy and copywriting, including the headlines and descriptions for 3,000+ TED Talks. Each week, I ran the writers’ room, made the executive edit and fed what worked best back into the process.
High-stakes speakers
- The next global superpower isn’t who you think
- The war in Ukraine could change everything
- This is what a digital coup looks like
- How AI is unlocking the secrets of nature and the universe
Breakout hits
- Inside the mind of a master procrastinator
- Sleep is your superpower
- How every child can thrive by five
- “Everything happens for a reason” — and other lies I’ve loved
Views to date, rounded
Beyond the headlines
I direct and edit the words around big ideas. At TED, that meant official speaker profiles for each conference, posts on the TED Blog including conference recaps and executive announcements, speaker lineup announcements, press releases, printed program guides and scripts for original series and the TED Talks Daily podcast. And I co-wrote the style guide, then taught a whole organization to write in it.
Launches
I take new initiatives, editorial projects and original series from idea to launch, setting goals and running budgets. I also name things. I led naming and copywriting for TED’s shows, newsletters and games, and wrote the proposals that funded them.
- TED Countdown, TED’s climate initiative. I led publishing for the Countdown Global Launch, from the hub and YouTube homepage takeover to the global livestream (15M views) with talks by Prince William and Pope Francis. Then I carried it through yearly summits, the Countdown Dilemma series and a 2023 climate documentary for PBS.
- Original video series, including The Way We Work, Small Thing Big Idea, Body Stuff, Sleeping with Science and Am I Normal?, each launched across TED.com and YouTube
- TED Intersections, a series pairing two speakers in conversation, which ran for three seasons and was shortlisted for a Webby
- Watch Parties, livestreams on YouTube, LinkedIn and TikTok
- Sponsored series, custom playlists, homepage takeovers and LinkedIn Lives with dozens of partners, such as Wells Fargo, Capital One, US Soccer, BMW, BCG, Google, IBM, SAP, Honda, T. Rowe Price, Upwork and Visit Philadelphia
- Newsletters reaching an audience of nearly 11 million, including the launches of TED Talks Tech, TED Talks Business, TED Talks Daily, Science Worth Knowing, 31 Days of Ideas and more
Audience
I let the audience tell me what to write and publish next.
YouTube
+74% click-through
I treat titles and thumbnails as editorial work. On TED’s YouTube channel, click-through rose 74% from 2022 to 2026. Using AI to analyze years of channel data, I found that original series earned 2.7 times the median views of talks. That finding shaped the 2026 channel strategy, which called for fewer, stronger uploads and a regular place for originals.
TED Talks Daily
25% → 40% open rate
I program newsletters around what readers open and watch. I reprogrammed TED Talks Daily and sharpened its subject lines. Newsletter ad revenue grew 75% from 2023 to 2025.
Framing and packaging
+63% views
I test framing, then turn what works into rules a whole team can use. With TED’s Audience team, I studied which headlines drew the most attention. Headlines that spoke directly to the reader and promised a clear answer did best. Talks framed both ways drew 63% more views in their first 30 days. We turned the findings into a guide that editors and curators used for every talk.
AI
I build AI systems that give editors more time for taste and judgment, and let teams take on projects they’d never imagined before. At TED, that included:
- Prompts that let any team write in TED’s voice
- A transcript workflow that helped talks publish faster, with fewer errors
- An archive scan that read TED’s talks, speaker profiles and blog posts and flagged problems before they became crises
- Performance analyses that gave creatives clear guidance on what to make
About
I started as a reporter at U.S. News & World Report, wrote daily for PR News and managed sponsored content at Time Inc. I joined TED in 2015 as an editor and spent 11 years there, rising to Director of Publishing & Social and a seat on TED’s Leadership Roundtable.
I build and mentor teams of editors, strategists and producers, and make the final call on what gets published. Ideas don’t spread on their own. Somebody has to find the words.
- 2023–2026Director of Publishing & Social, TED
- 2019–2023Managing Editor, TED
- 2016–2019Associate Managing Editor, TED
- 2015–2016Annotation & Transcription Editor, TED
- 2013–2015Writer/Editor, PR News
- 2012–2013Project Manager, Time Inc.
- 2011–2012Reporter, U.S. News & World Report
- 2011BA in Philosophy, Villanova University / University of Oxford
Looking for a leader? Let’s talk.
