I knew early in life that I wanted to be a storyteller, but I had no idea what shape or form that would take. After college I was lucky enough to meet a fellow Georgetown University alum who worked at ABC News and helped me get my foot in the door. I spent the next decade covering presidential elections, papal conclaves, natural disasters, and financial news. During that time, I was fortunate enough to win an Emmy in 2008 for covering President Obama and a Peabody in 2013 for covering Superstorm Sandy.
In 2014, I left ABC News to go work with David Axelrod. The next year we launched a podcast called "The Axe Files." As the show's Executive Producer, I oversaw a magical journey that saw the show reach millions of listeners, feature live episodes at SXSW, tape episodes from the White House to London to Ukraine, and ultimately become a nationally broadcast TV show on CNN.
In 2019, I took a hard right turn and joined Salesforce, eventually becoming the head of Salesforce Studios, the company's production team. As vice president and head of Studios, I led an 85-person team that produced customer films, brand spots, original series, quarterly earnings films, product demos, virtual events, and deal support films. During that time, we won the 2023 Content Marketing Award for Project of the Year for our original series "The Ecopreneurs”; the 2022 Content Marketing Award for Best Marketing Program and Best Use of Video in Content Marketing for our streaming site Salesforce+; and the 2021 Content Marketing Award for Best Program for our show “Leading Through Change." "The Ecopreneurs" would also win three 2022 Telly Awards, eight 2022 W3 Gold Awards and five W3 Silver Awards; and the 2022 Global Innovation Award. Our marketing series "Connections" took home top prize for the 2022 Global Content Award for Best B2B Content Campaign. We launched media partnerships with CNBC, Fortune, and Vox, including launching “The Shift”, a seven-part episodic series on Salesforce customers airing on NBCU properties.
Not to bury the lede, but by far the best thing that has happened to me is my incredible family: my amazing wife and our three daughters. And not far behind is the wonderful people I have had the privilege of working with along every step of my journey. Production is a team sport. And the only way anyone can make something truly special is on the strength of that team. I have been lucky enough to be a part of great teams and to lead great teams, and the friendships that have come out of those experiences has been far and away the best part of my journey to date.
If you’re interested in connecting, hit me up at matthewbjaffe@gmail.com or on LinkedIn.