Lauren Zalaznick

Lauren Zalaznick serves as Strategic Advisor at Refinery29. She=e was a Board Member at Shazam. She also serves as Board Member at Critical Content. Zalaznick has devoted her career in media to transforming the cultural landscape. From her start as an award-winning independent feature film producer to her most recent role as Executive Vice President at NBCUniversal, Zalaznick has been increasingly compelled by the intersection of content, technology, and data as a means for substantial business growth. Zalaznick advises and invests selectively in digital media startups, primarily focused on new content platforms. Every week, she publishes a widely read and influential newsletter about women in business and culture, The LZ Sunday Paper. Zalaznick has overseen the transformation of some of the strongest television and digital brands in media, from VH1 to Bravo Media to Fandango, driving double-digit growth at each business, across all metrics. The content and marketing that Zalaznick created and oversaw has garnered countless awards, including the first-ever Emmy nomination and win for a cable network in the primetime category of Competitive Reality, for Project Runway and Top Chef, respectively. Project Runway was also awarded a Peabody, Zalaznick's second. Zalaznick herself has been recognized as an industry pioneer and has received many honors for her achievements. She was the youngest recipient awarded the Brandon Tartikoff Lifetime Achievement award by the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE). Time magazine named Zalaznick one of the "Time 100: World's Most Influential People," and Vanity Fair named her to their "New Establishment" list; earlier, she was the subject of a New York Times Magazine cover story. In 2011, she delivered a TED talk that has been viewed well over half a million times. She serves on the Board of Directors of Shazam, Penguin/Random House, The Nielsen Corporation, and GoPro. She is an advisor to many industry leading content and tech start-ups, including Atlas Obscura, and Medium.com, and the venture capital firm Greycroft Partners. She recently served as Executive Producer on the feature-length documentary film, Generation Start-Up, an exploration of entrepreneurship by a group of millennials against the backdrop of Detroit's own re-birth. Zalaznick is a Trustee of the Corporation of Brown University. From Brown, she received her B.A. in English literature, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.