Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins. Listen to these talented women while you enjoy a wonderful lunch. They co-founded BlogHer in 2005 and it is now the single largest community for women who blog. Hear where they found their inspiration, how they grew the business, and what keeps them passionate about BlogHer.
Lisa Stone
Co-Founder and CEO
Lisa Stone co-founded BlogHer, Inc. in 2005 with Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins, and serves as the company’s CEO. With Lisa’s leadership, the company has grown from an idea for a grassroots conference into a diversified media company and a Top 5 women’s network online, according to comScore, with 2,500+ premium blog contributors, the world’s largest in-person events for bloggers, and an award-winning social hub at BlogHer.com. As principal architect of BlogHer’s distributed, cross-platform media business, Lisa developed innovative models for profitable, premium online media, and for recognizing and compensating a new wave of content creators.
Lisa has shepherded the company to revenue of eight figures trailing for the past two years, during which BlogHer, Inc. was named among the AlwaysOn OnMedia Top 100 for 2011 and Global 250 for 2010, and as one of America’s Most Promising Start-ups by BusinessWeek. BlogHer’s flagship site, BlogHer.com, was named one of the Top 100 Websites for Women by Forbes in 2010. A traditional journalist who left CNN for the Internet in 1997, Lisa began developing new social media business models during her tenure as the first Internet journalist awarded a coveted Nieman Fellowship from Harvard University in 2002. Lisa first blogged as part of her 2004 election coverage for the Los Angeles Times, the same year she developed and launched the first sponsored blog network for Law.com. Lisa’s expertise and vision has led to numerous innovations in the social media space. Prior to the Nieman Fellowship, Lisa was among the early drivers of some of the most successful online communities and interactive programming for women. As the executive producer and Editor in Chief/VP, Programming for Women.com, Lisa grew the 18-channel network to a Top 30 site and oversaw all original programming and the development and integration of content community initiatives with Hearst and Rodale magazines, E! Television/Online, HBO’s Sex and the City, Bloomberg, and Gallup and Knight Ridder.
Together, BlogHer co-founders Lisa, Elisa and Jory have been named among the most influential women in Web 2.0 and technology by Fast Company (2008, 2009 and 2010), Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year semi-finalists (2010) and among the seven most powerful people in new media by Forbes Magazine (2009). In 2011 they were jointly awarded the PepsiCo Women’s Inspiration Award and in 2008, the Anita Borg Institute Social Impact Award. Lisa has been honored among the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company (2010), the Most Powerful Moms in Media by Working Mother Magazine (2010), AlwaysOn Top 25 Women in Tech (2009) and the Influencers of Silicon Valley by the San Jose Mercury (2009). She is a frequent speaker at leading industry events, including the Montgomery Technology Conference, Online News Association Annual Conference, EconWomen Summit, Fairchild|WWD Summit, Web 2.0, SXSW Interactive, Supernova and the AlwaysOn Summit. As the co-founder of a mission-based for-profit organization, Lisa is a member of the Advisory Boards for both the California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships and the Knight Digital Media Center of the USC Annenberg School for Communications. She lives in Silicon Valley with Christopher Carfi and their children.
Contact:
Web: www.blogher.com
Twitter: @lisastone
Elisa Camahort Page
Co-Founder and COO
Elisa Camahort Page co-founded BlogHer, Inc., in 2005 with Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone, and serves as the company’s COO. Elisa leads events, marketing, public relations and research for the company and with her leadership, the BlogHer conference business has grown from a single conference hosting 300 attendees in 2005, to five diverse events that will host over 4,000 attendees in 2011. With more than 3,000 attendees expected at this year’s annual conference alone, the flagship event is the largest conference for women social media leaders in the world and has been described as “ComicCon for women who blog” by Variety magazine. Elisa’s other major focus is to bring the story of BlogHer and the influence of the women in its community, to life via research, helping BlogHer’s customers glean critical insights about how women connect, share and behave online and off. Elisa’s work leading BlogHer’s consumer insights team, as well as marketing and public relations, has resulted in coverage and profiles from many of the leading media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Advertising Age, Forbes, Fast Company, CNN, The Today Show, the Wall Street Journal, and many more. Elisa is a frequent public speaker, bringing research data about women and online communities to life in recent keynotes at Marketing to Women, MediaBistro Circus, Fem 2.0, New Communications Forum, BlogPaws and WOMMA Marketing Summit and sessions at Web 2.0, SXSW Interactive and CES. Prior to co-founding BlogHer, Elisa ran a marketing consultancy, Worker Bees, which was among the first companies to integrate corporate marketing strategies into the social media environment. Before bringing her marketing expertise to the Internet industry, Elisa was a senior-level high-tech marketer, helping develop digital infrastructures for voice, video and data delivery. Her last corporate position was as Senior Director of Product Marketing at Terayon Communication Systems, where she managed a team of product managers and five product lines. Together, BlogHer co-founders Lisa, Elisa and Jory have been named among the most influential women in Web 2.0 and technology by Fast Company (2008, 2009 and 2010), Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year semi-finalists (2010) and among the seven most powerful people in new media by Forbes Magazine (2009). In 2011 they were jointly awarded the PepsiCo Women’s Inspiration Award and in 2008, the Anita Borg Institute Social Impact Award. Elisa has been honored as an NCWIT Hero. As the co-founder of a mission-based for-profit organization, Elisa is a founding Fellow of the Society for New Communications Research and serves on the Board of Directors of the 42nd Street Moon Theatre in San Francisco, the programming advisory committee for SXSW Interactive and the Board of Advisors of the Anita Borg Institute A native of the Bay Area, she lives in San Jose with her software developer husband.
Jory Des Jardins
Co-Founder and President of Strategic Alliances
Jory Des Jardins co-founded BlogHer, Inc. in 2005 with Elisa Camahort Page and Lisa Stone, and serves as the company’s President of Strategic Alliances and lead evangelist to top revenue partners. With Jory’s leadership, BlogHer has developed its own distinctive, brand of strategic partnership, helping to facilitate constructive dialogue between some of the world’s major brands and women who are social media leaders and their readers. Jory frequently gives private presentations and training sessions to Fortune 500 companies and their internal and external strategy teams, bringing community insights and case studies directly to companies and agencies that are navigating the social media space. Leveraging her prior experience in both print and online media, Jory works within brand teams to deconstruct media models and to develop messaging and campaigns that resonate with bloggers, blog readers and brands.
BlogHer’s integrated sponsorship model, which combines live events and media channels, has grown to revenue of eight figures trailing for the past two years, during which BlogHer, Inc. was named among the AlwaysOn OnMedia Top 100 for 2011 and Global 250 for 2010, and as one of America’s Most Promising Start-ups by BusinessWeek. BlogHer’s flagship site, BlogHer.com, was named one of the Top 100 Websites for Women by Forbes in 2010. Jory is BlogHer’s representative on the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Board of Directors, and serves on the advisory board of start-ups FeedBlitz and Juno Baby. Jory also represents BlogHer at public speaking engagements, having keynoted such events as ad:tech Chicago and the Marketing to Moms Conference, and spoken on panels at events for the IAB, ANA, AMA and WOMMA and at Web 2.0, SXSW Interactive, BlogWorld Expo, the Monaco Media Forum, Girls in Tech and CES. Prior to co-founding BlogHer, Jory helped high-technology start-ups Pluck and Rojo develop the models to launch successful blog syndication initiatives and served as producer as Third Age transitioned from traditional web destination to a network of bloggers. Together, BlogHer co-founders Lisa, Elisa and Jory have been named among the most influential women in Web 2.0 and technology by Fast Company (2008, 2009 and 2010), Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year semi-finalists (2010) and among the seven most powerful people in new media by Forbes Magazine (2009). In 2011 they were jointly awarded the PepsiCo Women’s Inspiration Award and in 2008, the Anita Borg Institute Social Impact Award. Jory lives in the Bay Area with her husband Jesse and their baby daughter.
Contact:
Web: www.jorydesjardins.com
