Ryan Jacobs

Background

About Ryan Jacobs

With 15 years of industry experience, Ryan Jacobs is an award-winning editorial leader who specializes in building products, teams, and departments that drive major influence, traffic, and revenue. As Senior Director of Content at Built In, he leads all ops and strategy for a growth-focused and data-obsessed content team (editorial and brand) using LLM and SEO research to create best-in-class features, news, expert, and list coverage for millions of global tech professionals. Reporting directly to the SVP of Growth/Product, he oversees a 20-person team of managers, editors, reporters, and strategists. As Director of Editorial Operations, he led the development of an editorial and SEO data-tracking, analytics, and project management infrastructure (using Airtable, GDS, SEMRush, and Make), to increase traffic by 240%+ YoY. As a Senior Editor, he built the company's expert contributor network, a place where the smartest executives, software engineers, data scientists, and product managers in the tech industry write compelling narratives and commentary about problem-solving on the road to innovation. As Deputy Editor of Pacific Standard, he edited investigations, features, scene pieces, and essays, and managed the magazine's digital strategy and newsroom operations. Stories he edited won a Mirror Award (against competitors from GQ and Vanity Fair), helped launch major books, influenced network television, and received mention in the Best American Essays anthology. He led the Quick Studies section of the Pacific Standard website to a Folio magazine Eddie award in its first year. Before joining the magazine, he covered international affairs and crime for The Atlantic's global channel, reporting on the largest diamond heist in French history, international carbon market scams, and the dark side of the truffle trade, among other subjects of intrigue. He has also written for Mother Jones, Bay Citizen/Center for Investigative Reporting, SIERRA magazine, the Point Reyes Light, and The Chicago Reporter. His reporting has been featured and cited by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR’s Marketplace, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 'Q' radio program, and author Naomi Klein, among many others. He graduated summa cum laude from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. His first book, the ABA Indiebound bestseller The Truffle Underground, was published by the Clarkson Potter/Crown imprint of Penguin Random House in 2019. It focuses on crime in the international truffle trade. Send all inquiries to rjacobsreport@gmail.com.