Resume / CV

I’ve led digital change at startups, as well as larger companies such as NPR, Yahoo! and The Washington Post.

I recently joined the editorial team at Science News as their Digital Director.

Braggadocio:

I like to connect people with big ideas. In college, I followed Jon Meacham’s footsteps when I was elected Editor-in-Chief of The Sewanee Purple. While there, I doubled subscriptions, paid our staff for the first time, launched our website, streamlined print operations, and created our first features section (and all Jon can brag about is one measly Pulitzer).

After college I joined The Washington Post, where I worked with the President (Steve Hills) to negotiate major advertising contracts and to introduce new products for our ad team. While there, I also presented my first discounted cash flow model — a case for expanding our color print capacity — which prepared me for my next two years at a Top Ten MBA Program.

I did my MBA internship in the corporate finance department at Yahoo! where I met founders Jerry Yang and David Filo and one of the founders of Flickr.  With the exception of Yang (who made his contempt for MBAs clear) they gave me a few pointers and got me started as a coder.  As an English Major, I didn’t think I could do it, but I’m glad I pressed myself because it was a skill that helped me see larger opportunities for media companies in the disruptive years ahead.

Collaborating with creatives to build new digital products was so much fun that I never looked back.  After B-school, I joined NPR, where I was lucky enough to be the product manager who oversaw the launch of our first mobile website (nominated for a Webby in 2009), the NPR News iPhone app, the NPR News Android app, iPad app (an honorable mention for the Best App Ever award, 2010), and Music iPhone app.  I also coded the Mix Your Own Podcast Tool, which wouldn’t be noteworthy except that The New York Times called it: “the future…where digital media is moving, especially…news.”

It was about that time that I started getting into machine learning, and I helped set up a small team that looked at how broadcast news could be improved with algorithms.  The four of us got together and filed a patent on an approach which combined collaborative filtering, classification algorithms, raw popularity, and editorial judgement.  It was a smart concept, but it took the leadership of Kinsey Wilson to turn our little side experiment into NPR One, which is, IMHO, the most exciting development in broadcast news in the past two decades.

After that, I joined a team of developers, designers, and data scientists to create a platform for NPR One, and I worked with a number of car makers, TV manufacturers, and Silicon Valley heavy-weights to spread public radio to every device with an internet connection and a speaker.

In 2018, I moved on to a niche science and medical publisher. As an equity partner and the head of product for a portfolio of brands that included HealthCentral and TheBody (the premier health advocacy pub for the HIV community), my challenge was to focus our innovation in directions that would lead to measurable results for the company. In that time, we acquired a major competitor, doubled our audience, and shut down our least profitable businesses. Throughout that time, we were able to grow our revenue by 20%, year over year, which led to a profitable sale to Amulet Capital.

In 2020, I joined the New York Times best-selling author Shankar Vedantam, and his Executive Producer, Tara Boyle, to launch their nationally-syndicated radio show, Hidden Brain, as an independent media company. I was responsible for setting up the soup-to-nuts of their digital operations: website, podcast analytics, fundraising, programmatic advertising, payroll and healthcare. For the critical first two years after launch, I led IT and all tech strategy.

On May the Fourth 2022, I went full-dork and joined the editorial team at Science News.

Education

University of Virginia (Darden), M.B.A., General Management & Finance, 2007

YAHOO!, M.B.A. Fellowship, Summer 2006

Oxford University (St. Johns), Summer Baccalaureate Program, British History, 1997-1998

University of the South (Sewanee), B.A. Magna cum Laude, Distinction in Literature, 1999

Bibliography

Perry, Demian. “Curiosity Out on the Town, with Demian Perry.” WERA Radio, 2 Sept. 2020.

Perry, Demian. “How NPR uses platforms to reach new audiences” Talk at China Central Television, Jinan, CN, 2016.

Perry, Demian. “How NPR is adapting to digital disruption” Talk at China Central Television, Dalian, CN, 2016.

Perry, Demian. “Creating the Bayern 2 AppBayerischer Rundfunk at Medientage München, 2016.

Perry, Demian. “Disrupting Hierarchies with Agile Development” Talk at China Central Television, Tianjin, CN, 2015.

Perry, Demian. System and method for recommending timely digital content 20140136554, United States Patent and Trademark Office, 15 May 2014.

Perry, Demian. “Digital Media and Mobile Content” Talk at DC Mobile Monday, 2011.

Perry, Demian. “The NPR Android App: A Bazaar BeginningNational Public Radio, 23 Dec. 2009.

Perry, Demian, et. al. “NPR News IPhone App Upgrade Includes Live Coverage And MoreNational Public Radio, 13 Oct. 2009.

Perry, Demian. “The Making of the NPR News IPhone AppNational Public Radio, 17 Aug. 2009.

Perry, Demian. “Life After the Mobile Web: Will Media Ever Be the Same?National Public Radio, 14 July 2008. 

Mentions

Fuller, Melynda. “Remedy Health, PubMatic Hire Execs For Mobile, TechMediapost, 2019. 

Fitzgerald, Michael. “Making News Websites Accessible to AllNieman Reports, Apr. 2016.

Weinberger, David. “NPR Initiates Phase Two of Plan to Become the Pandora of NewsSlate Magazine, May 2015.

Hoffberger, Chase. “Here’s How Top App Developers Cope With Multiple PlatformsBusiness Insider, July 2011.

Hansell, Saul. “Seeing the Future in NPR’s Custom News Podcast.” The New York Times, December, 2008.

Public Radio Tuner: The Newest Way to Get Your Public RadioWPSU Radio, July, 2008.

Board Memberships

WERA Radio & Arlington Cable Access — Board Member, Treasurer, 2020-present

St. Michael’s Capital Fund Board — Board Member, Investment advisor, 2019-present

Mobile Monday Board — Board Member, 2016-2018

For Fun…

Children’s Book: Otis & Thoreau Become Friends. Seattle, Amazon Publishing, 2012.

TownCalendar.org — Founder and Developer of event classification algorithm, 2019-present

Certified Scrum Product Owner (product development team leadership certification)

Full Stack Python Developer / Code Mentor

Scouting — Assistant Scout Master, Eagle Scout

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