Tony Panaccio

Tony Panaccio is a 35-year media veteran, having started his career in the 1980s as a newspaper journalist for The Clearwater Sun, The Tampa Tribune and others. In 1989, Tony won the Florida Press Club Award for his eye-witness coverage of the execution of serial killer Ted Bundy, which is also where he met future agency colleague John Wilson. He later shifted his career into public relations with video game producer Capstone, where he also scripted many of their games, including William Shatner's TekWar. During that period, he was also Shatner's publicist for his various video game projects. In the mid-90s he was a VP at New York City's TSI/The Weber Group, where he worked with major tech clients like Microsoft, AOL, IBM, Sony, Warner Bros. and more than a dozen early Internet startups.In 1999, he moved to Hill & Knowlton, where he represented Stan Lee, Marvel Comics founder and pop culture icon, to help him establish a media footprint outside of the comic book fan base . His work in the comics industry distinguished him enough to be named Senior Vice President of CrossGen Entertainment, which was purchased by The Disney Company in 2003. While there, Tony developed motion picture and TV projects based on CrossGen's properties, working with talents such as Bob Zemeckis, Wes Craven, Larry Kasanoff and Chuck Russell. Tony continued to work as a marketing consultant with film producer Michael Uslan (of Batman, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Constantine, National Treasure fame) to help develop projects and license his properties into film and television. After CrossGen was sold to Disney in 2003, Panaccio worked as a consultant to Hutchison Wampoa and Vidiator, licensing properties from Stan Lee's POW Entertainment and Top Cow Entertainment to Sprint Wireless in one of the first deals to produce original content for cell phones. Over the course of his career, he has written press releases, marketing copy, Web site copy, market analyses and advertising copy. As a ghostwriter, he has written speeches for political candidates and CEOs, including Bill Gates, and scripts for luminaries such as Stan Lee and William Shatner. As a journalist and columnist, he has written thousands of articles over the years for newspapers like the Clearwater Sun, Tampa Tribune and Miami Herald as well as popular Websites like Bleeding Cool, CBR and Medium. Today, he splits his time as a senior counselor for Wilson Media (working alongside his old friend John Wilson), a producer with Lonesome Pine Pictures and an equity partner and VP of Communications with Bold Blue Campaigns, a political services agency focused on backing liberal and progressive candidates in state and local races.