Marcia Stepanek is a Multimedia Journalist, New Media Strategist, an award-winning news and content editor, videographer/producer, and author of the forthcoming book, "Swarms: The Rise of the Digital Anti-Establishment." She develops and teaches digital media strategy, communications, and data analytics in the graduate Nonprofit Management Program at Columbia University in New York, and is Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of BrandStories, a Manhattan-based digital media studio and consultancy that leverages cutting-edge media technology and multimedia to stimulate public dialogue, advocate for positive change, and foster a greater connection between audiences and their stories to enhance civic engagement.

Marcia also publishes the forthcoming Videocracy, a multimedia journal, and hosts The New Narratives Project, a podcast and public forum featuring media innovators and offering innovative tools, ideas, and media for healing our civic divides. Marcia also writes for a variety of publications, including the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fast Company, The Atlantic, the Huffington Post, MSNBC, and PopTech, among others.

A former Knight Fellow in New Media at Stanford University and former Technology Strategies editor at Business Week, Marcia also was Founding Editor-in-Chief of Contribute magazine from 2005 to 2010, the first news magazine to cover the rise of technology-driven advocacy and digital philanthropy. She also was Founding Executive Editor of CIO Insight magazine, the Washington projects editor for Hearst Media and an investigative reporter for Knight-Ridder News in Detroit and Washington. She also was Tokyo Bureau Chief for Hearst and reported from Asia and Eastern Europe for National Public Radio, PBS Television, and New Zealand Public Radio.

Marcia has received a variety of awards for her work, including a George Polk Award for Consumer Journalism, a National Press Club Award for Washington Correspondence, and a National Headliner Award for Explanatory Journalism. She was the recipient of a New York Newswomens’ Club Front Page Award for Internet Commentary, for a series of columns she wrote about the changing nature of privacy in a digital world. Marcia also was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

In addition to her academic, editorial and new media strategy work, Marcia speaks frequently about the rising power and influence of social and visual media at workshops, civic symposia, universities, and cross-sector conferences worldwide.