The Wrap News announced today that Dan Strauss has been named Chief Operating Officer. In this new role, Strauss will oversee the business operations of the fast-growing media company, reporting to Chief Executive Officer Sharon Waxman.
Strauss was named Chief Digital Officer in June 2021 and has successfully grown the company’s digital footprint, including site and related traffic, subscription, partnerships and improved customer experience. In addition to overseeing all digital operations of the company, he will oversee finance, human resources, legal, and marketing and events in his expanded role.
TheWrap has seen unprecedented growth since 2020, despite pandemic-related challenges that were experienced by the industry as a whole, doubling advertising revenues in the past year and driving significant traffic growth on the site and related partner sites.
“In less than a year, Dan has brought his much-needed digital experience to TheWrap, driving significant improvements across the company,” said Waxman. “There is more work to do, but giving Dan full authority over the business operations at TheWrap made sense in every way, providing him the license to drive our growth further and faster.”
“I feel excited to be empowered to bring profound change and growth to TheWrap as we enter this new phase,” Strauss added. “There’s so much talent that’s already here, and there’s so much opportunity within our ecosystem and well beyond. This is the time to lean into all of that, together.”
Strauss has held leading roles at top publishers during a career building digital media businesses. Most recently he was the Chief Product Officer at Tribune Publishing and previously was the General Manager for The Hollywood Reporter/Billboard.
TheWrap has also continued to expand its news coverage, with a greater focus on its awards editorial and screening series. WrapPRO, TheWrap’s premium subscription service, has been growing at exponential rates since its launch two and a half years ago. The subscription audience grew 250% in 2021 and is poised to double its subscriber base in 2022.
To that end, TheWrap has also hired entertainment journalism veteran Jethro Nededog as Assistant Managing Editor for WrapPRO and Business News, leading all editorial for the PRO subscription service. Prior to this position, Nededog served at several top entertainment news publications, including as TV Editor at TheWrap, as well as at Entertainment Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter, LATimes.com and Business Insider. He has also written and produced documentary TV for National Geographic, History, Discovery, and E!.
Additionally, TheWrap is delighted to announce the hire of award-winning journalist Joe Bel Bruno as Editor at Large, Business. Bel Bruno will be writing deep analysis and reported insight pieces around the disrupted world of media, entertainment and technology. Bel Bruno most recently served as the Founding Editor of the business news site dot.LA. He was previously the Managing Editor of Variety, and served as Deputy Business Editor and later Deputy Entertainment Editor at the Los Angeles Times. Bel Bruno also ran markets coverage for The Wall Street Journal. Before that he was an award-winning reporter at the Associated Press in New York, and held senior posts in London and New York for Knight Ridder Financial.
TheWrap has also hired Jayson Goldberg as the Director of Brand Partnerships and Sponsorships, reporting to Chief Revenue Officer Lynne Segall. Goldberg will be developing custom sponsorship programs for Wrap events and the suite of products in TheWrap portfolio. Goldberg is a media, advertising and sponsorship sales veteran, including five years as an SVP of Dick Clark Productions and Executive Director for The Billboard Music Awards (Guggenheim Partners), where he was successful in bringing multiple large scale partnerships to their live award show integrated media portfolio, including Kia, Chevrolet, MasterCard and Planet Fitness, among others. Prior, he held positions such as Publisher and Associate Publisher of industry leading titles, including Fast Company, Inc. and Conde Nast’s Architectural Digest.
For more information please visit TheWrap.com.
Press Contact
Erin Freilich | High10 Media | erin.f@high10media.com | 917.750.0493
About The Wrap News Inc.
The Wrap News Inc. is the leading digital-first news organization covering the business of entertainment and media via digital, print and live events. Launched in 2009 by award winning journalist Sharon Waxman, Founder & CEO, TheWrap’s independent voice, metabolism for breaking news and investigative stories make TheWrap.com a key destination for producers, directors, studios, and network executives, agents, managers and talent. TheWrap’s subscription service, WrapPRO, offers in-depth reporting and analysis for executives and industry insiders. TheWrap’s tentpole events help to galvanize the industry and connect us to a worldwide audience of influential decision-makers and up-and-comers striving to join them.
TheWrap has won multiple awards for investigative reporting, columns, criticism and feature writing. In 2021 Waxman was honored at the L.A. Press Club SoCal Journalism Awards as the Best Online Journalist, as well as for her blog, WaxWord. That same year, The L.A. Press Club’s SoCal Journalism Awards also gave TheWrap top prizes for feature photography, as well as for its weekly podcast, “TheWrap-Up.” TheWrap was chosen as the Best Online News Website at the SoCal Journalism Awards in 2018, 2012 and 2009, and Best Entertainment Website at the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards in 2018. In 2019, the site won two National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards for the multimedia package “#AfterMeToo: 12 Accusers Share What Happened Next, From Firing to More Trauma.”
In 2020, Sharon Waxman was honored as one of The Top 100 Women Entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine.