At Edelman, Tonia oversees the development of the agency’s intellectual property, including the Trust Barometer and brandshare studies, as well as the development of new research initiatives. She leads the firm’s global knowledge agenda across practices, geographies and clients, and acts as a catalyst for new thinking and discourse on business in a multi-stakeholder society.
Tonia has more than 25 years of experience in marketing, research, strategy, conferences, and media, with a particular focus on using data-driven insights to create a compelling point of view and competitive advantage. Most recently, she led Modern Media, an agency she founded in 2002 with to help media companies and marketers innovate in a changing market. In that role, she worked with clients to produce conferences, develop brand strategies, manage digital campaigns, and create new customer experiences.
Tonia and the Modern Media team also created and produced The Realtime Report and Conferences, focused on the business use of the social, mobile and realtime web. In that role, Tonia hosted discussions with business leaders such as Martha Stewart, MC Hammer and Craig Newmark, as well as social media executives from brands such as Ford, Intuit, Dell, SAP, JetBlue, Virgin America and Southwest Airlines. Tonia regularly speaks at industry events and has been quoted on the business impact of media transformation by news outlets such as The New York Times and NPR.
Before founding Modern Media, Tonia held a series of executive management, sales and marketing roles for leading business technology media companies, including Ziff Davis Media and UBM Tech.
You can follow Tonia on Twitter at twitter.com/tonia_ries.