Vox Media Elevates Editorial Leadership

We are thrilled to announce exciting editorial leadership changes at Vox Media. We have built a company that produces deep and critically important journalism, storytelling, utility and entertainment, reaching hundreds of millions of people each month across all modern media platforms. We have grown in our ambition, our impact, and our audience size – and that growth necessitates leadership to drive our work and support our talented teams.

Going forward, four groups will represent our seven networks, each led by a new Senior Vice President. Those will be: (1) The Verge and Polygon, led by Chris Grant; (2) Eater and Curbed, led by Amanda Kludt; (3) SB Nation, which includes our 300+ sports communities, MMA Fighting, and SBNation.com and (4) Vox and Recode, led by Lauren Williams. The Verge, Polygon, Eater, and Curbed will continue to operate independently under their respective Editors-in-Chief. The SVPs will manage and direct the business development for their networks, collaborating with other leaders across the company to serve our audiences, establish and track goals for major initiatives, amplify our networks in market, and build our IP pipeline.

Lauren Williams, Editor-in-Chief of Vox, will expand her role to include SVP, Vox and Recode. Lauren succeeded Ezra Klein as EIC in September of 2017. Under her strong leadership, with a constant focus on the quality of the journalism, the smart scaling of the organization, and the morale of the teams, Vox has experienced dramatic growth, including the development of its most innovative and influential journalism projects and creation of two new editorial products with Future Perfect and The Goods.

Reporting to Lauren, Allison Rockey, Executive Editor of Vox, will also be taking on a new role, as our new VP, Editorial Products, Vox and Recode, building out our investment in and growth of podcasts and membership, while playing a crucial role in developing the talent that makes these products a success. During her time as Executive Editor, Allison took the ethos of Vox and guided the launch of new projects and endeavors to great success, including the “Today, Explained” podcast and Vox’s initial experiments in the membership space, while also helping to steer the ambition of Vox and Recode’s growing podcast roster.

Chris Grant has been promoted to SVP, The Verge and Polygon. As Polygon’s founder and editor-in-chief for the last seven years, Chris has established the network as the source for smart, critical, and entertaining content surrounding cultural moments borne of gaming and the future of entertainment. Over the last two years, Chris has juggled those responsibilities with pressing company needs, leading our anti-harassment and security efforts, serving on the company’s bargaining committee in order to negotiate our first union contract, and contributed to a number of other projects to support the health of our editorial networks. He’ll now focus on further growing two of Vox Media’s powerful brands.

Helen Havlak, our new VP, The Verge, and Chris Plante, our newly promoted EIC of Polygon, will work with Chris Grant to lead The Verge and Polygon into a new era. Helen has driven The Verge forward in every major editorial area, from aggressively growing The Verge’s audience across all platforms to leading ambitious projects such as Better Worlds to crafting plans for long-term growth and product experimentation. In addition to Helen’s role, TC Sottek was recently promoted to Executive Editor of The Verge. Steven Belser, already General Manager of both The Verge and Recode, will expand his remit to support Vox as Vox’s GM this summer. Together with Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel, there is no team better suited to push The Verge into 2020 and beyond. Chris Plante stepped into more and more leadership responsibilities on Polygon as Chris Grant started to take on cross-company work, where he has led, and will continue to lead, Polygon through significant growth, built out its thriving entertainment coverage, directed the newsroom, and even found time to write an extensive review of Disneyland.

Amanda Kludt, has been promoted to SVP, Eater and Curbed. Under Amanda’s leadership, Eater has sharpened its service journalism, won prestigious awards, announced an unprecedented deal with Hulu, and become one of the most progressive and respected publications in the world of food. Amanda will continue to serve as EIC of Eater with support from General Manager Britt Aboutaleb, as well as Editorial Director Sonia Chopra and Executive Editor Matt Buchanan, who continue to lead Eater’s excellent editorial coverage and push Eater into new spaces, platforms, and experiences. Kelsey Keith will remain Editor-in-Chief of Curbed and Jill Dehnert will remain General Manager of Curbed; together they have guided the growth of Curbed’s depth and reach through reporting (including an incredible Sea Ranch deep dive), commerce initiatives, local authority, launched Curbed Travel, and the recent summer Curbed and Vox Media Podcast Network hit, Nice Try!

In addition to these exciting new promotions across our networks, a number of new positions have been created to continue building out this incredible team:

• VP, of Vox TV & Longform: oversee ambitious Vox-specific editorial projects across OTT and Television, in partnership with Vox Media Studios,
• Executive Editor, Vox: run the day-to-day operations of Vox’s thriving newsroom, and
• SVP, SB Nation: oversee the incredible team shaping the future of the network, which includes SBNation.com, MMAFighting.com, over 300 fan-centric team sites, and the SB Nation podcast network.

Want to join us in building the best modern media company that’s getting the future right? We’re hiring!