Author: Leslie Yazel

Community-focused travel platform adds three senior executives and promotes three key leaders as company accelerates growth strategy

 

NEW YORK – Atlas Obscura, the leading community-focused travel platform inspiring wonder and curiosity about the world’s most remarkable places, today announced a significant expansion of its leadership team with three new senior executives and three strategic internal promotions. The moves position the company to accelerate its growth as it builds the world’s best travel community app for passionate, frequent travelers.

“Six months into my tenure as CEO, Atlas Obscura is highly profitable and ready to build for its future,” said Chief Executive Officer Louise Story. “This team of global leaders will help us to serve passionate travelers in fulfilling their travel dreams with tools and world-class content that shows off destinations in fresh and inspiring ways.”

Joining Atlas Obscura

Asmaa Quorrich joins as Global Chief Marketing Officer, bringing over two decades of experience building and transforming global brands across CPG and Travel & Tourism. Most recently, she served as Global Chief Marketing Officer for Jumeirah Group and Saudi Tourism Authority, where she built the brand and grew its conversion through solid strategies and award-winning campaigns. Her career spans roles at major brands including KFC as Chief Marketing Officer for MENA and Pakistan, where she led a $1 billion brand transformation, and marketing leadership positions at PepsiCo across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. She began her career at P&G and is the Founder & CEO of ThinkBig Consulting.

Natalie Moore joins as Head of Product, coming from the White House’s renowned Digital Services Office, where she created new products serving many groups of Americans. Her work included rebuilding the U.S. Refugee Program app, creating digital tools to better serve veterans, and improving SNAP benefit delivery for families in need. Before the White House, she worked at National Public Radio (NPR), where she focused on audience engagement and launching features to attract and retain new users through data analysis, A/B testing, and deep understanding of NPR’s diverse audience.

Kamilah Mitchell-Thomas joins as Chief People Officer, bringing extensive experience as a seasoned CHRO and board director who has led people strategy across industries ranging from media to technology to global turnarounds. She was previously Chief People Officer of Roku, Dow Jones, and SVP of People and Culture at A&E Networks, as well as Chief People Officer of a private equity-backed company, helping organizations scale, reinvent, and thrive.

 

Strategic Internal Promotions

Atlas Obscura also announced three key internal promotions that recognize exceptional leadership and position the company for transformation:

Lauren Johnston has been promoted to Chief Product Transformation Officer. Since arriving at Atlas Obscura as interim Executive Editor in June, she has accelerated the pace of change, innovation, and collaboration across the organization. With her rare combination of content expertise and product experience from leadership roles at Yahoo News, content strategy at New York Daily News, and reporting and editing roles at Newsday, amNewYork, CBS News, and People, she will lead world-class content teams and help transform of Atlas Obscura’s products for the AI era.  

Daniel Sobo has been promoted to SVP, Head of Engineering and Technology. This expanded role recognizes his essential leadership in scaling Atlas Obscura’s digital platform to serve millions of travelers, as well as leading the technical development and launch of the company’s native apps. He is deeply involved in transforming how AI supports both internal operations and consumer-facing products and serves as a key advisor on AI strategy. Before joining Atlas Obscura, he built products for startups in healthcare, data analytics, and travel.

Doug Baldinger has been named Chief Content Officer of AO Entertainment, the company’s unit producing extraordinary content that reaches millions of travelers through books, podcasts, and films. He has been at Atlas Obscura since 2018, leading all content at the company, including the video unit. Before joining Atlas Obscura, he was Vice President of Creative Development at Blue Man Group.

Revenue Organization Expansion

The company’s revenue growth continues under Sara Ewell, Chief Revenue Officer, who has driven Atlas Obscura’s significant advertising business growth over her 3.5 years with the company. She is currently building out a larger advertising sales organization and expanding the destination marketing organization (DMO) team. 

Lesli Krishnaiah recently joined as Director, Domestic DMO Sales, bringing over 20 years of DMO sales experience and deep travel-industry expertise, including roles at Mountain News and Outside Magazine. She leads domestic DMO sales alongside Jacquelyn Blackwell, Senior Manager, Travel & Tourism Partnerships, who joined last year.

The company will soon announce the addition of international DMO and international brand sales leadership, viewing international expansion as an area of significant growth opportunity.  They will join Alecia Dalessio who is leading domestic brands as our Senior Director of Brand Partnerships.

About Atlas Obscura

Atlas Obscura is the leading community-focused travel platform inspiring wonder and curiosity about the world’s most remarkable places. Through its award-winning content, unique experiences, and community-driven platform featuring more than 30,000 wondrous places, Atlas Obscura serves millions of passionate travelers seeking authentic, off-the-beaten-path discoveries. The company publishes bestselling books including the No. 1 New York Times bestseller “Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders,” and operates digital products that help people find amazing things to do when they are traveling.

For more information about Atlas Obscura, visit www.atlasobscura.com.

 

 

Hello Atlas Obscura team,

 

We’re excited to share that we are partnering with The Twenty One, a team of audience tacticians and engineers known for driving rapid growth at leading digital brands. The team from The Twenty One will work alongside all of us on a day-to-day basis throughout the next several months to accelerate our community growth and engagement.

 

The Twenty One’s founder, Jonathan Gupta-Buckley, and other senior executives previously worked at Dow Jones, so we’re familiar with their ingenuity and high standards. They will be working closely with the Atlas Obscura team to increase the pace of growth across SEO, newsletters, paid media, registration, social media channels and other areas.

 

We are also expanding our engineering resources in partnership with The Twenty One. Dan will play a pivotal role in engaging with the team of engineers who will work with us to make growth and engagement-oriented changes on our platforms.

 

Our in-house team has made great strides in growing the Atlas Obscura audience. Digital media is up against increasingly strong headwinds, and with its company tagline “proudly impatient,” The Twenty One is well-positioned to bring AO’s excellent content to an even wider audience. You’ll learn more about this work, and have the chance to ask questions and shape future workflow, in upcoming meetings.

 

In the meantime, please help us welcome The Twenty One team to the Atlas Obscura world!

 

Thanks,
Leslie and Louise

Atlas Obscura is excited to continue attracting talented journalists and professionals to the company.

 

This week, Atlas Obscura is welcoming two senior editors, and next week, the company will welcome an accountant.

 

“We are on a mission to make Atlas Obscura the best community travel app in the world, lifting up the experiences and voices of people,” said Louise Story, Atlas Obscura’s chief executive officer. “As we continue to pivot to focus on our community, you’ll see continued change and advancement. Welcome Sunshine, Daniel and Joshua.”

 

Sunshine Flint joins as a senior editor. Sunshine has a background in travel and lifestyle with staff roles at Travel + Leisure, AFAR and as travel editor at Bridal Guide. She was on the launch team for BBC Travel—the first vertical for BBC.com. Sunshine has most recently helmed editorial packages for Inc. magazine and led content and data visualization projects at The Washington Post Creative Group. Previously, she was at HP as creative content lead, running the B2C consumer website and print magazine. Her latest trip was to Palasë, Albania, where she enjoyed enjoyed swimming, hiking and a caviar facial.

 

Daniel McDermon also joins as a senior editor. Daniel has worked at numerous journalism organizations, including WNYC public radio and Newsday. He spent ten years as an editor at The New York Times, leading the digital transformation of the Culture desk. His favorite Atlas Obscura-style quirky experience? He once spent a week reporting inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. To avoid the tourist throng, he recommends the Met’s Etruscan collection: “Tucked away on a mezzanine above the Greek and Roman sculpture court, it’s full of incredible stuff and rarely crowded.”

 

Joshua Johnson joins as the company’s accountant. Joshua joins from the Internal Revenue Service, where he was a revenue agent auditing small businesses. Prior to the I.R.S., Joshua worked as an audit associate at Baker Tilly, the advisory, tax, and assurance firm. Joshua noted to us that one of his favorite places on Atlas Obscura is the Sunken Pirate City at Port Royal. “The history and mystery around it are fascinating—it’s wild to think part of an entire city now rests underwater,” he said.

 

 

Travel community Atlas Obscura has been awarded a 2025 James Beard Award for “Gastro Obscura’s Feast,” a celebration of incredible culinary experiences from around the world.

 

The James Beard Media Award for Dining and Travel recognizes “exemplary and comprehensive service journalism that relies on both critical voice and thorough research to bring a variety of dining options into perspective, whether in a single city, a region, or a country.” Feast creators Sam O’Brien, Diana Hubbell and Anne Ewbank were recognized for their work. 

 

This is the second consecutive win for Atlas Obscura. Last year’s win was for the James Beard Media Award for Feature Reporting, which recognizes “excellence for engaging writing and in-depth reporting” in food features. You can read Hubbell’s article, “Saving the Hogs of Ossabaw Island: An eccentric heiress, a daring mission, and the fight for North America’s most unusual pig,” here.

Congratulations to the Atlas Obscura team!

 

This week, Atlas Obscura CEO Louise Story added two new digital executives, as she builds out the company’s team for a new phase of growth.

 

Rebecca Cruz, most recently Director of Strategic Projects & Operations at Hearst Magazines, joins as Chief Administrative Officer.

 

Lauren Johnston, previously the Executive Editor at Yahoo News, joins as interim Executive Editor.

 

“We are setting up to build the best travel community app in existence,” Story said. “Rebecca and Lauren bring years of experience at the nexus of product, content, and community. Watch this space for more job postings soon.”

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Lauren Johnston has spent two decades leading digital transformation initiatives at top media companies. In her 10 years at Yahoo News, she served first as Head of Breaking News building a 24/7 live coverage desk, and later as Head of Programming leading content strategy, curation, distribution and audience growth across platforms, including Yahoo’s homepage, the award-winning Yahoo News Digest app and the Webby-nominated Yahoo News TikTok, which grew to one million followers within a year of launch.

 

Prior to Yahoo, Lauren led content strategy for the New York Daily News, and co-founded an innovation lab to host early-stage journalism startups in the newsroom. She has also worked as a reporter and editor for Newsday, amNewYork, CBS News and People covering everything from the city’s recovery after 9/11 to cultural pulse points like fashion week, the Westminster, marathon and more.

 

An avid traveler, she notes she has adventured through 30 countries (and counting!) and has run seven marathons, the most far-flung in Havana, Cuba.

 

Rebecca Cruz brings more than a decade of experience that spans product operations, program management, and chief of staff functions. At Hearst Magazines, she worked closely with the Chief Product & Technology Officer to lead roadmap development, strategic planning, and cross-team execution. Prior to that, she held roles at The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, where she helped implement operational systems that improved transparency and efficiency.

 

Rebecca began her career in the travel industry, program managing luxury group travel experiences for cultural institutions including The New York Times Journeys and Playbill Travel. In that role, she coordinated complex international itineraries, collaborated with editorial and marketing teams, and delivered seamless, high-touch experiences for discerning travelers.

 

Her favorite travel experience can be found in the Atlas: “It’s hard to pick just one, but I still think about Bahia Lapataia the ‘End of the World’—in Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego National Park, which I visited just before heading to Antarctica,” she says. “There’s something grounding about being somewhere so remote; it’s scenic, windswept, and quietly dramatic.

The members bring experience from companies including JPMorgan Chase’s Techstars, Sony, NBC, Lindblad Expeditions, Foursquare, Strawberry Frog, Uber, Summit, Tata Consultancy, Open AI, and American Airlines.

 

Today, Chief Executive Louise Story shared the 12 esteemed, cross-industry executives she has chosen to offer strategic guidance on growth, transformation, and innovation.

“All of these successful leaders are longtime fans of Atlas Obscura’s brand and mission, and I’m excited to work with them to maximize Atlas Obscura’s potential,” she said. “Each one brings inspiring experiences as well as tactical know-how to evolve our offerings. And all of them have made travel a priority and passion in their own lives.”

The new board includes entrepreneurs, founders and corporate leaders who have remade the landscapes of their fields, from broadcast television to travel to social media to consumer products. 

 

Ty Ahmad-Taylor is a technology executive with nearly three decades of experience in consumer software, product development, and interactive television. He currently serves as Lead Independent Director on the Board of Directors of GoPro. Previously, he held Vice President roles at Snap andMeta, focusing on product growth and monetization. Ahmad-Taylor also served as CEO of THX Ltd., a media and entertainment company. His career includes leadership positions at Viacom, Comcast, The New York Times, and Samsung Electronics. He is a Board Trustee for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Ahmad-Taylor has a portfolio of a dozen technology and hardware patents and is recognized for his expertise in product development, information design, and media industries. He is based in Los Angeles.

 

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Bridget Blaise-Shamai brings over 25 years of executive experience in aviation, customer loyalty, high-speed rail, global shipping, and fintech. Her background spans all areas of the commercial function with innovations in customer experience, data analytics, digital, and partnerships. She served as President of the American Airlines AAdvantage Program, achieving record results. Blaise-Shamai received her BA from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from Washington University, St. Louis. She is an advisory board member for post-series B startup Skeps (a blockchain-enabled fintech payments company) and pre-seed startup PointsYeah (a real-time travel rewards currency search engine). Travel is her top hobby, with visits to five continents and 50 countries. She resides in Southlake, Texas.

 

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Brett Camper is a Senior Manager at Snap Inc., where he helped build Snap Map—now used by over 400 million people monthly—leading rendering and mapping technology for one of the world’s most popular social platforms. With a background spanning geospatial technology, product development, and open source innovation, Brett co-founded Mapzen, an open source mapping company whose technologies were later adopted by the Linux Foundation, and previously led product and engineering teams at Kickstarter from 2010-2014. His career also includes leadership roles at Esri, Elastic, the ACLU (where he led product development for advocacy and mobilization), and RealNetworks, bringing expertise in real-time rendering, product management, and building technology that supports creative expression and complex problem-solving.

 

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Dennis Crowley is a technology entrepreneur focused on creating things that make everyday life feel more fun and playful. He is Co-Founder & CEO at Hopscotch Labs, and Co-Founder/Co-Chair at Foursquare, one of the world’s leading location technology platforms. Previously, he founded Dodgeball, one of the first location-based mobile social services, which was acquired by Google. Crowley co-created PacManhattan, one of the earliest “big urban games.” He is also the Co-Founder/Co-Chair at Street FC and the Founder/Chairman of Kingston Stockade FC, a semi-professional soccer team in New York’s Hudson Valley. Crowley holds an MA from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) and a BA from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. He splits his time between New York City and the Hudson Valley.

 

 

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Gabor Cselle is a Member of the Strategy Team at OpenAI. Previously, as a Director at Google’s Area 120 incubator, he guided the development and launch of new consumer and prosumer products. He is a serial entrepreneur whohas founded three startups—T2, Namo Media, and reMail—with successful exits to Twitter and Google. After Twitter acquired Namo Media in 2014, he joined as a Group Product Manager, where he led work on ad products, and growth initiatives. He then founded reMail, a mobile-first email client acquired by Google, and helped integrate its ideas into Inbox by Gmail. Earlier in his career, he served as VP of Engineering at Xobni, a top-ranked Outlook plugin for email search and social analytics. He holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from ETH Zurich and is based in Berkeley, California.

 

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Andrew Essex is Senior Managing Partner at Tata Consultancy services, the $29B global information technology firm. He is a former McKinsey Senior Advisor and former Chief Executive Officer of the Tribeca Film Festival. He is founding CEO of Droga5, which was acquired by William Morris Endeavor in 2013 and sold again to Accenture Interactive in 2019. A highly creative strategic executive with three decades in branding, business development, and M&A, Essex sits on the board of Finance of America, MMA Global and Plus Pool. He is a former advisor to the White House American Office of Innovation and the Wharton SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management. A frequent angel investor, he serves as an advisor to Glasswing Ventures, an AI-native fund. Essex began his career as an award-winning journalist and editor. Essex has an MA and BA from New York University and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

 

 

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Amy Friedlander Hoffman brings expertise in brand building, experiential marketing, and strategic partnerships. Her leadership roles as Chief Business Officer at Liquid Death Mountain Water, Head of Business Development & Experiential Marketing at Uber and SVP of Programming at AT&T have given her a proven track record in scaling innovative brands and engaging diverse audiences. Friedlander Hoffman holds a JD from the University of Chicago and a BA with honors from the University of Michigan. An avid traveler, she lives in Santa Monica and is the Vice Chair of the Los Angeles Waterkeeper, an organization dedicated to protecting the city’s waterways. She lives in Santa Monica, California.

 

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Dotty J. Giordano is Chief Revenue Officer at Summit, where she drives growth strategy, monetization, and community experience for an invitation-only global network of entrepreneurs, CEOs, and thought leaders. A trailblazer in the creative industry, Dotty was the only female partner at global digital creative agency Code and Theory, where she co-led the Brand Group. Giordano helped launch THE WELL and Sage + Sound, where she scaled experiential wellness platforms. She led award-winning campaigns at Ketchum and Ogilvy for iconic brands such as IKEA, Virgin America, and Leica Camera. She earned her B.A. in Leadership Studies with a minor in Journalism from the University of Richmond, where she was an NCAA Division I Lacrosse player and member of multiple academic honor societies. Giordano lives in New York City.

 

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David Goodman is an executive with leadership experience spanning the auction, travel, music, and live entertainment industries. He served as CEO of Julien’s auctions, the internationally recognized premier auction house for music, entertainment, and Hollywood memorabilia. Under his leadership, Julien’s has achieved record revenue growth. Prior to this, Goodman was Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer at Lindblad Expeditions and Executive Vice President of Marketing and Digital Development at Sotheby’s, where he directed the company’s global rebrand and led its digital transformation strategy. He also served as President of Productions and Live Entertainment at The Madison Square Garden Company. He also spent 13 years at CBS in senior roles across its businesses and played a key role in CBS’s digital innovation. He holds a B.A. from Indiana University and splits his time between New York City and East Hampton.

 

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Scott Goodson is a visionary marketer and founder of the influential firms StrawberryFrog, StrawberryFrog Ai, Inplural, and StrawberryFrog Media. He provides strategic guidance to consumer and B2B brands. Goodson has over 35 years of experience leading global teams. The iconic brands he has worked with include AfterPay, ASICS, Google, BlackBerry, Emirates, Heineken, Northwell, Natura Brasil, PepsiCo, Truist, and Walmart. He lives in the New York metropolitan area and is the author of best-selling books “Uprising,” which introduced the world to Movement Marketing, and “Activate Brand Purpose,” which shows how activating purpose drives brand growth.

 

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Poppy MacDonald is a senior executive and growth leader with deep experience building audience, credibility, and revenue models for purpose-led, editorially driven organizations. Most recently, she served as the first President of USAFacts, hired by founder Steve Ballmer to scale the organization’s reach and impact, where she grew its audience and national profile and built trust across media, policymakers, and consumers. Previously, she led media companies responsible for driving audience growth and revenue, including launching POLITICO Pro, a paid subscription for public policy professionals, and later serving as President of POLITICO. She also led National Journal’s membership model for senior government affairs professionals. Earlier in her career, she built the commercial and consulting model around the Gallup World Poll, a global public opinion data platform. Poppy has a long-standing passion for travel and exploration, shaped in part by living abroad in Nepal during college, and continues to seek out new places and perspectives with her family. She splits her time between Seattle, Washington and Cannon Beach, Oregon.

 

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Erik I. Moreno serves as the Executive Vice President of Growth and New Initiatives at Sony Pictures Entertainment, where he focuses on growth strategies and identifying new business opportunities for SPE and other Sony Group Companies globally. His focus areas include emerging marketssuch as India, the Middle East, and Africa, as well as growth sectors like sports and emerging technologies like AI and the Metaverse. Previously, Moreno was the Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and M&A at SPE. His experience includes senior roles at Time Inc., 21st Century Fox, News Corp, eBay Inc., and Level 3 Communications. Moreno is a Trustee of Strada Education Foundation, serves as a Board Overseer for The School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Board member of CityYear Los Angeles. Moreno is an alumnus of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in the greater Los Angeles area.

 

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Edie Rodriguez is a seasoned global executive with over four decades of leadership experience in the travel and tourism industry, particularly in luxury cruise, hospitality, and technology sectors. She has held CEO and senior leadership positions with some of the world’s most iconic cruise line operators, including Crystal Cruises, Royal Caribbean’s Azamara Cruises, and multiple Carnival Corporation brands (Cunard, Seabourn, and Carnival). She has also served in many board and advisory roles including with The Saudi Tourism Authority, APCO Worldwide, and NASDAQ-listed Gaucho Group Holdings.

A true global citizen who has traveled to over 100 countries, Edie is recognized for driving business growth, advancing digital transformation, and guiding companies through worldwide expansion and billion-dollar outcomes. Her expertise spans strategy, finance, retail, technology, marketing, and operations, with a particular gift for building iconic brands and empowering teams around a shared mission.

 

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Gary Stewart is a Yale-trained lawyer, investor, serial entrepreneur, and executive whose career spans three continents. He spent two decades in Europe—living in London, Madrid, and Barcelona—where he led Wayra Spain and Wayra UK, part of Telefónica’s $265M early-stage venture fund, one of the largest corporate VC initiatives across Europe and Latin America. He later served as Managing Director of Techstars NYC powered by JPMorgan. The companies he’s backed have collectively raised over $2 billion in follow-on capital. Now based in New York, he is the founder of MyCofoundr.AI, an AI-powered business advisor. He also teaches at Yale and serves as a venture partner at Hearst’s Level Up Ventures. Born in Jamaica and raised in the Bronx, Gary has explored more than 70 countries.

 

 

 

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Lauren Zalaznick is an innovative leader in creating growth and brand strategies for leading media and digital companies. The hallmark of her corporate career was as Chair, Entertainment & Digital Networks at Comcast NBCUniversal, where she transformed networks like Bravo, Oxygen, Telemundo, and Fandango into powerhouse brands. She has been widely recognized for her accomplishments. Today, she is a Senior Adviser at BCG. Through her company, Yorick, LLC, she advises founders and CEOs across various media and tech entities. She is a director of The RTL Group, a Bertelsmann Company, and serves on the board of TNL MediaGene. Zalaznick is the former chair of National CineMedia, a former director of GoPro, The Nielsen Corporation, Shazam (acquired by Apple), and Penguin Random House. She is a Trustee emerita of Brown University, from which she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She lives in New York City.