Adweek rests at the pinnacle of brand marketing and advertising publications. With a storied history reaching back to 1979, Adweek now enjoys a readership of over six million industry professionals, while continuing this tradition of excellence through its website.
Gravitas and Growth
It wasn’t enough for Adweek to simply have a digital presence. It had to be responsive to an industry where trends are set in an instant—and rendered obsolete just as quickly.
As the Lead Web Engineer for parent company Prometheus Global Media, I helped build the newly formed core engineering and Adweek product teams from the ground up. After hiring and mentoring a number of talented engineers, our teams had nearly quadrupled in size, all of them building toward a culture of human-centered technical excellence.
The Road to Agility
Adweek soon had the people, but they also needed a robust change management process. By stepping in as a project manager, I encouraged the General Manager of Digital to work regularly with the team to prioritize and estimate improvements, and gave them the framework and the tools to do so.
In six months, the team had set the standard for Agile project management across the organization, becoming a model for Adweek’s sister sites.
Award-Winning Results
With their backlog of technical debt at an all-time low, Adweek was then free to pursue projects like the wildly successful Wanamaker Place Awards, in collaboration with AOL.
It wasn’t just the winners of this awards ceremony who won praise, though. Now operating like a well-oiled machine, the Adweek website was honored by The Webby Awards in the Best Magazine category in 2014.