Stephanie Sharis

closing today's disturbing empathy gap. Lightbeam acquires, produces and distributes inspirational films about compassionate acts and selfless people. Leveraging her track record as a proven leader with a wide range of operating experience, from building out venture backed start-ups to turn arounds of established firms, Sharis founded Athena Media Consulting in 2018 to serve the strategic and operational needs of her digital start-up and media publishing clients. Before Athena, she served as Chief Executive Officer of Cricket Media, a global learning company best known for its award-winning magazines. Cricket has a 45 year legacy of publishing best-in-class fiction and non-fiction content for children ages 0-14 and pairs its educational programming with its collaborative learning platform to power B2C and B2B learning products and solutions. Before joining Cricket, Sharis was CEO of DailyClout, a data-driven civic tech start-up dedicated to making government more transparent and accessible. From 2007 to 2015, Sharis was COO of SnagFilms, Inc., founded by Ted Leonsis, a pioneering digital distributor of independent films and owner of the Webby Award-winning movie site, Indiewire. From 2003 to 2007, Sharis worked at AOL, as Director of Business Development and then Director of Creative Development. She developed and launched AOL True Stories in 2006, the precursor to SnagFilms, where users could watch social issue documentaries and engage with content through social sharing and impact tools. Sharis received her B.A. in English from Wesleyan University, with Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors. Afterward, she joined Teach for America and taught English (grades 9 – 12) at a public high school in East Los Angeles and earned her teaching credential through the LAUSD fellowship program for gifted teachers. Sharis holds a Master in Public Policy at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government with a focus in telcom/internet policy.

Before joining AOL, Sharis co-founded and served as Co-President of Transmission Films, an online distributor of independent and foreign films. She has also worked as a project consultant for New York Office, Walden Media, Content Film, Urbanworld Films, JP Morgan and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Sharis is similarly comfortable in a creative role: she co-produced THE PROMISE, a short film starring Saundra Santiago and Kevin Conway, MUSIC INN, a documentary which premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, and THE PARTY’S OVER, a feature documentary starring Philip Seymour Hoffman that was released in theaters internationally and aired on the BBC.

Sharis graduated summa cum laude from Wesleyan University in 1994 and received her graduate degree in public policy from Harvard University in 1999.