Tony Papa

Over the past five years, Tony advanced from consultant to KVCR Director of Operations for the PBS/NPR station in San Bernardino, Calif., and First Nations Experience (FNX), the only national TV network devoted to World Indigenous content. After proving his capabilities as post-production supervisor to leadership, he became the project lead for a $16M station remodel, which he delivered on time and $170K under budget. Upon promotion, he efficiently managed team assignments, contracts, and deliverables for contractors, finance, engineering, HR, production, fundraising, and social media departments. Tony's responsibilities expanded to daily oversight and planning of a $6M annual budget, including multi-year forecasting and cash-flow management for three business units and a nonprofit foundation. Under his purview, digital and streaming solutions for four broadcast channels have been designed and implemented. Before joining KVCR, Tony served as assistant editor on the National Geographic documentary film, Science Fair, which won a National Emmy, the SXSW prize for Festival Favorite in 2019, and a dozen more festival awards. While collaborating with SoulPancake, he was responsible for the technical delivery of TV content to Disney Television and their ABC digital unit. As producer and editor for The Terry Kath Experience, Tony and his team premiered a feature film documentary about the storied Chicago band member at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival (selling it to FilmRise for worldwide distribution). In his role as lead editor or producer on more than 200 ads and videos, his work appeared on MTV, Sony, Honda Music, Uproxx Media and Vogue Italia, and Vanity Fair. Among his favorite producing experiences is an ad campaign for eyewear giant Oliver Peoples starring the late, great producer Robert Evans...that was filmed at the mogul's legendary Hollywood estate. Fresh out of college, Tony joined an LA start-up called Dental Advantage, where he engineered a CRM software solution that enabled a membership marketing database to communicate with over 100K dentists. He helped secure nearly $900K of sponsorship and membership sales for Dental Advantage Publishing and Continuing Education courses in a single quarter. From there, Tony landed the enviable position as Employee No. Three at CarsDirect an Idealab company. Drawing on grit and grace, he co-created the business plan, site wireframes, and presentation materials that secured $350M in Series C funding.