Alex Blumberg Keynote Speaker

Alex Blumberg is an award-winning radio journalist, and the CEO and cofounder of Gimlet Media, the successful podcasting network focusing on narrative journalism and story-telling. Before Alex started Gimlet Media in 2014, he was a producer for “This American Life” and the co-founder of “Planet Money.”

Alex documented the true story of what it’s like to launch a business in the first season of a podcast hosted on Gimlet, titled “StartUp.” The company has raised $1.5 million in seed funding, after raising most of its initial capital from investment firms Betaworks, Lowercase Capital, and Knight Enterprise Fund, Gimlet invited its listeners to help raise the last $200,000 through crowdfunding platform Alphaworks. Along with “StartUp,” Gimlet currently hosts two additional shows: “Mystery Show,” a podcast where the host solves everyday mysteries; and “Reply All,” a show about the internet.

Previously, Alex was the producer for the public radio show “This American Life,” (1999-2014) which featured his stories regularly. From 2007-2014 he served as the executive producer of the television version of “This American Life.” Prior to his work on “This American Life” he worked as a freelance radio reporter, contributing to the Savvy Traveller and Chicago Public Radio. In 2008 he collaborated with National Public Radio economics correspondent Adam Davidson to co-host the “Planet Money” podcast.

Blumberg won the George Polk Award in Radio Reporting for his reporting with Adam Davidson for a May 2008 show titled “The Giant Pool of Money”. He is currently an adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia University.