Tom Davidson is a media executive, journalist and educator who has worked at the intersection of revenue, content and digital transformation for public and commercial media organizations.
His career has included digital product-development projects at PBS and Gannett – including PBS Passport, the most-successful source of new members for public television stations since the pledge-drive DVD, producing more than $100 million in revenue to date.
At Tribune Co., he served as a market general manager with P&L, staff and revenue-growth responsibilities in two markets; he later served in corporate culminating as northeast regional vice president for digital content. As a journalist, he served as reporter and editor whose assignments stretched from Iowa to Haiti. As a leader and manager, he led and mentored teams of up to 50 storytellers, revenue generators, technicians and designers.
He grew up in the Midwest and graduated from Drake University. He shifted from newsroom to digital-transformation roles after receiving a John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University, where he studied the economics of information. He later studied product research and development at IDEO U, the educational arm of the design firm IDEO. He’s previously taught nonprofit leadership, media entrepreneurship and product development at the University of Maryland and American University in Washington.
