Founding Editor

About Us:

Unfinished is an enterprise working to strengthen our civic life in the digital age. Founded to take action to restore our deteriorating social fabric, Unfinished focuses on three challenges: redirect technology, especially social media, to fuel collaboration over division; renew and strengthen civic institutions to accelerate inclusive problem-solving; and grow a more fair economy.

As an enterprise that integrates social impact with financial results, Unfinished’s portfolio includes a technology lab, a media initiative, an applied research institute, and an entrepreneurial network of innovators working to advance our economy, democracy and technology.

As we are in the early stages, we are looking to hire several self-motivated, talented individuals to help drive and execute on our mission. You should be purposeful, quality-driven, curious, determined, collaborative and fun.

About You:

You are a visionary editorial leader with a global perspective and deep understanding of the interrelationships of policy, business, technology and their impact on society.
You’re an entrepreneur, looking for an opportunity to build something new and play a role in establishing an entirely new market.
You have a reputation for bringing light to challenges, solutions and ideas through engaging storytelling and believe in the power of journalism to enlighten and inspire action.
You are an exceptional judge of editorial and creative work and talent, and able to identify, attract and motivate the right people for specific assignments.
A natural collaborator and manager, you can operate well within a networked business, exerting influence when necessary while building strong relationships throughout.
You have intellectual curiosity and are both learner and teacher, adept at framing, connecting, simplifying and contextualizing for your team and audiences.
You are well known for your diligence, hard work, creativity and openness to new ideas and approaches.

About the role:

The Founding Editor will play a lead role in creating the vision for an entirely new and innovative media brand and content platform. This individual will partner with the Chief Growth Officer to build and scale Unfinished Media, supported by the mission and resources of the broader enterprise, and unencumbered by traditional revenue and preconceived format and content models. S/he will play a critical role in the growth and impact of all Unfinished initiatives by engaging a wide range of audiences through what will be the leading source of information about the most critical challenges of our time. Creating and leading editorial direction, this individual will help establish a distinctive, innovative and respected brand that breaks through the clutter of the media landscape. The Founding Editor will partner with the Chief Growth Officer on organizational strategy and leadership, bring thoroughness and creativity to the editorial and platform strategy and manage content creation and innovation while ensuring Unfinished media stays true to its core mission. He/She will also collaborate with Unfinished’s technology and social impact leaders and other colleagues to achieve Unfinished’s ambitious agenda.

While our offices are currently closed due to the pandemic, this role will ultimately be based in New York City; however, there may be flexibility to be based in Los Angeles. The Founding Editor will report to the Chief Growth Officer.

Responsibilities:

As a foundling member, you'll lead the development of Unfinished's media's vision and voice, working collaboratively with the founder, the leadership team and the Chief Growth Officer for the media platform
Lead the development and implementation of Unfinished's content and format strategies to produce content that supports and continually elevates and reinforces the brand vision and core mission
Attract, motivate and develop high caliber editorial, creative and journalism talent including both team members and outside contributors
Assign, oversee and provide creative and editorial direction to a team of writers, reporters and producers who are involved in every stage of content creation, from ideation to pre-production to execution
Oversee the editorial budget process, working in partnership with the Chief Growth Officer and leaders on the finance team, and reliably meet budget targets
Represent Unfinished Media internally and externally as needed
Collaborate with broader Unfinished team, providing updates on progress and outcomes, and assisting in the overall success of Unfinished

Experience/Skills:

A demonstrated entrepreneurial spirit with a desire to create and launch new products to broaden the reach of Unfinished's content while maintaining the core brand sensibility and furthering its mission
Impeccable journalistic credentials and a widely held reputation for knowledge, deep insight and adeptness in engaging audiences in serious content through powerful storytelling
A coach/player leader, able to build, inspire and nurture a team of exceptional content professionals, from journalists to video, audio, experiential and digital development staff and outside contributors
Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills; can interact positively within the organization and also represent Unfinished externally
Experience and desire to launch new editorial products, and extending content to new platforms including events to maximize impact while maintaining journalistic integrity and brand ethos
A collaborative style and experience working with ownership and diverse internal teams to further the goals of the broader enterprise
Unquestionable integrity; holds to personal and organization values with conviction. Deep appreciation for the role of journalism as a public service
Embraces new technology to create and enhance journalistic efforts and build audiences
A bachelor's degree and possibly an advanced degree in journalism, english or another relevant discipline

Success Attributes:

Innovative, proactive, and highly adaptable to a rapidly-evolving entrepreneurial environment.
Operate from the perspective of no job too big or too small
Perseverance to push through obstacles swiftly and execute across a broad range of responsibilities, while keeping an eye to the bigger picture
Ability to navigate ambiguity and approach challenges with an entrepreneurial growth mindset
High emotional intelligence, a low-ego and collaborate well with people from different cultures and points of view
Inquisitive by nature and interested in working closely with the technology team to understand blockchain and other cutting edge technologies
Ability to work independently

At Unfinished:

We strive to always take the high road
We take the long view
We are builders
We believe in the power of collective genius above lone heroes
We value the possibilities opened through questions
We are us

More About Us

At Unfinished we aspire to move the traditional paradigm for solving problems from a top-down, disconnected approach to a more democratized, stakeholder-driven model. Our network convenes a community of diverse innovators from the worlds of impact, academia (such as Georgetown University), arts and culture (such as The Shed), nonprofits (such as the Ford Foundation and Aspen Institute), and the private sector to ensure diverse and thoughtful voices are connected to solve problems.

We want to put people at the decision-making table who are most impacted by the problems we are solving. We are doing this in several ways, including convening a group of impact organizations for collective action and movement building, and supporting the renewal of existing civic institutions—and the creation of new ones—to accelerate more inclusive problem-solving. We believe that by redirecting technology to work for the common good, we can leverage it as an essential tool to scale positive change. We work to build concrete tools and models to advance ethical models for information technology.

One of our first efforts will be to change the way technology is built--and our first focus is to change the model that drives social networks. Social networks inform how we experience almost everything. We can't strengthen civic institutions, foster a more sustainable democracy, or create a more fair economy if we don't first change the model that drives social networks. We see social networks as a public good that should be owned by everyone and a key lever for strengthening our civic architecture. We are working to decentralize social networks, shift control of data and networks from private companies to citizens, lay the foundation for a new world which generates economic value for people rather than extracting economic value from users. This moves social networks from closed, proprietary spaces to open, publicly owned infrastructure on which anyone can build. This more ethical model offers the opportunity for change at scale across all dimensions of society.

We believe having diversity of perspective, professional backgrounds, identity groups and lived experience is a strength for teams and we actively encourage candidates of all backgrounds to apply. Unfinished is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, genetics, disability, age, and familial, caregiver, or veteran status.