The Brief

Skift was a fast-growing travel intelligence platform with a strong editorial voice and a sales team ready to monetize it, but no creative infrastructure to deliver for brand partners. The opportunity was to build an in-house studio that could turn Skift’s audience and authority into commercial programs without diluting the editorial product.

The Approach

I designed the studio model, brought it to market, and built the operating system behind it. That included pricing and commercial scoping, pitch frameworks, production budgets and workflows, staffing and capacity planning, vendor networks, and client delivery. The offering expanded from sponsored articles into research, video, interactive experiences, podcasts, events, and white-label agency work.

I built and led a multidisciplinary team of strategists, producers, analysts, writers, designers, and project managers, while leading creative and partnership strategy for clients including Mastercard, Hyatt, Accor, Brand USA, Destination Canada, AWS, and Visa.

The Outcome

SkiftX grew from $0 to $10M in three years and $15M at maturity, becoming Skift’s largest revenue line and serving 100+ global clients. The studio established a scalable model for turning Skift’s editorial authority into integrated commercial programs and became the foundation for my later company-wide role leading creative strategy across its brands, events, research, and partnerships.