Phillip Smith
Chief Executive Officer at Journalism Growth Lab, LLC
San Francisco, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolPhillip Smith is a veteran media innovation leader and CEO who helps nonprofit and independent newsrooms make disciplined, growth-oriented decisions about audience, strategy, and sustainability. With 14+ years leading product and newsroom transformation—culminating in founding Journalism Growth Lab—he has coached more than 100 journalism founders and delivered 500+ hours of one-on-one executive coaching for programs backed by the Google News Initiative and partners like LION and Lenfest. His background spans hands-on technology leadership (CTO at The Tyee), fellowship roles at Mozilla and Stanford’s JSK program, and running high-touch accelerator work that shifted in 2026 from cohort programs to bespoke publisher partnerships. Phillip blends practical product and web development chops with nonprofit fundraising and audience experimentation expertise, and is known for helping newsrooms decide what not to pursue as much as what to chase. Based in San Francisco, he pairs deep industry networks with a maker’s mindset that surfaces pragmatic, testable paths to sustainable journalism.
14 years of coding experience
16 years of employment as a software developer
Media Innovation Fellowship, Media Innovation Fellowship at Stanford University
Spanish, English
Stackoverflow
364reputation
9kreached
5answers
5questions
Github Skills (178)
yum10
dashboard10
postgresql10
markdown10
unicorns10
clojure10
api10
metabase10
sql10
site-generator10
data-visualization10
database10
mysql10
analytics10
static-site10
Programming languages (13)
Github contributions (5)
TheTyee/transit-vote.thetyee.ca
Mar 2015 - Oct 2015
Contributions:54 commits, 17 pushes, 1 branch in 7 months
phillipadsmith/everycandidate.org
Sep 2014 - Apr 2016
Contributions:177 commits, 1 push in 1 year 6 months
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