Join Sam Ford, author, innovator and problem-solver in the world of workforce as he discusses the vital importance of bringing innovation to Kentucky's world of work.
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    Sam Ford
    Director of Cultural Intelligence, Tiller Press, Simon and Schuster, a ViacomCBS Company
    Sam Ford's focus is on how organizations are listening to, developing relationships with, telling stories to, and putting themselves in the shoes of the audiences they seek to reach. Over the years, his work has spanned from journalism, documentary, and civic engagement to fictional/entertainment media to marketing/communications/advertising/public relations. Currently, he is Director of Cultural Intelligence of Tiller Press at Simon & Schuster, a ViacomCBS Company.

    Sam is also working on projects as a Knight News Innovation Fellow at Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, supporting various Future of Work initiatives in Kentucky in partnership with labs at MIT, USC, and elsewhere, and pursuing projects as a board member of both The Artisanal Economies Project and The Big Board.

    He has consulted with a range of organizations on their storytelling and audience engagement strategies, and models supporting innovation. Also, in 2015-2016, Sam was VP, Innovation & Engagement, Univision's Fusion Media Group. Before that, he was a director at strategic communications firm Peppercomm and helped found and run the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium.

    Sam is an affiliate of MIT's Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing. In that capacity, he researches, writes, and plans events focused on the activities people participate in surrounding popular culture content. He is co-author of the 2013 book "Spreadable Media,"​ from NYU Press, which has been translated into seven additional languages and released in paperback in 2018. Sam has written about media, entertainment, journalism, and marketing for academic publications and for places like Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Inc., Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and various other publications.
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