Quick Facts
Biography
Andrew Essex (born 1965) is an American business executive, journalist and author based in New York City. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Tribeca Enterprises, the parent company of Tribeca Film Festival. Until 2015, he was the chairman and founding CEO of Droga5, which won multiple awards under his leadership and was commended for its creative campaigns.
Essex was the executive editor of Details magazine from 2000 to 2004 and then served as the editor in chief of Absolute Magazine. His writing has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Outside and several other magazines. Essex is a frequent public speaker on media and marketing strategies. He is an angel investor in many technology firms and serves as an advisor to the White House Office of Digital Strategy and the Wharton SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management.
Education and career
Essex holds a BA and an MA in American literature from New York University. He began his career as a journalist and wrote pieces for The New Yorker in the 1990s. Later, he held editorial posts at Entertainment Weekly, Salon.com as well as The New Yorker and served as a consultant for the launch of US Weekly magazine.
In 2000, Essex joined Details magazine as the executive editor and oversaw the magazine’s branding of the metrosexual phenomenon. In 2002, while looking for advertising executives to include in Details magazine's annual power list, he met David Droga who was then the worldwide creative director of agency Publicis Worldwide. In 2004, Essex left Details magazines and became the editor in chief of Absolute, a luxury magazine. During this time, Droga and Essex kept in touch and often shared their views on how their respective industries were flawed. After working for several years, both wanted to start an entrepreneurial venture so they began working on ideas. Essex left Absolute in 2005 and the next year the two founded Droga5, an advertising agency.
After founding the company, Essex became the CEO. Under his leadership, the agency created UNICEF Tap Project and The Great Schlep of 2008. Both of the campaigns received a lot of media coverage and were commended for their ingenuity. In April 2013, Essex became the Vice Chairman of Droga5 after serving as CEO for five years. He stepped down from the position of Vice Chairman and left the company in July 2015.
In January 2016, Essex joined Tribeca Enterprises as its CEO.
Essex has served as a television commentator for ABC, CNN, Anderson Cooper, The View and FOX News. His writing has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Outside and several other magazines. He has co-authored four books: A Very Public Offering: The Story of the Globe.com, Chasing Cool, with Gene Pressman, Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny, with Nile Rodgers and "The End of Advertising: Why It Had to Die, and the Creative Resurrection to Come"
Essex sits on the board of The American Advertising Federation, the iHeart Media Creative Advisory Counsel, and Venture For America. He is also a board member at the Internet Advertising Bureau, and POP TECH.
Essex is a frequent public speaker on media, marketing and monetization strategies. He is an angel investor in many technology firms and serves as an advisor to the White House Office of Digital Strategy and the Wharton SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management.
Personal life
He lives with his wife and two children in New York City.