Who's behind the news?
Who's behind the news?
1.5.2
Newsjunkie.net is a resource guide for journalists. We show who's behind the news, and provide tools to help navigate the modern business of information.
Use of DataJames Bankoff is chairman and chief executive officer of Vox Media, Inc. He was born in 1969, raised in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. He earned a BA in international studies from Emory University, and an MBA in finance and strategic management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Bankoff began his career as a production assistant for the WETA-TV series Washington Week. In 1996 he transitioned to director of business development (sales) for Greenhouse, a collaborative business incubator that AOL launched during the first dotcom boom. In 1998 AOL boosted him to vice president of strategy and operations, and for the next four years he led various departments and initiatives within the company. From 2002 to 2006, he was AOL’s executive vice president of programming.
In 2009 Bankoff invested in, became an advisor to, and ultimately rose to CEO of sports blogging network SB Nation. Expanding the operations beyond sports, he guided the launch of tech news site The Verge. In 2011 he and Trei Brundett organized Vox Media as a parent to the portfolio of properties. In 2014 the general news website Vox.com, developed by Ezra Klein, Melissa Bell, and Matthew Yglesias, launched under the Vox Media umbrella.
Other business activities: Bankoff served as senior advisor at Providence Equity Partners (2007-2009), and sat on the boards of (W)here, Inc. (2008-2009) and Rosetta Stone (2012-2015).
He was included in Washingtonian's 2015 "100 Top Tech Leaders" and ranked #18 in Business Insider’s “Silicon Valley 100.”
For his role as executive producer of Live 8 Concerts Online, Bankoff received the first Emmy ever awarded for a webcast.
