Entrepreneurial Leadership

Product Development | Organizational Leadership
Journalism | Resume

Within the Miami Herald Media Company and beyond, Jane Wooldridge is recognized for exploring new approaches and organizing their implementation.

Organizational Leadership

Travel Editor, The Miami Herald

Jane Wooldridge handles staff and budget administration for the Miami Herald Media Company’s travel editorial projects in print, online and in broadcast. Since the staff is small, much of her work involves coordinating with freelancers and other Miami Herald staffs, including sales, marketing, production and design. As Travel Editor, she has devised content for and coordinated interactive consumer shows, reader contests, magazines, the travel editorial website and the Sunday newspaper.

Founder, Knight-Ridder Travel Editors Group

Jane Wooldridge initiated the Knight-Ridder Travel Editors Group to leverage skills and knowledge across Knight-Ridder’s 31 newspapers and provide new revenue opportunities through group sales. To do so, she obtained financing from the Knight-Ridder corporate office, then networked with editors at all newspapers to create four projects annually that were chosen and managed by group members. Projects included series and single issues that could be presented to advertisers as a group buy. Wooldridge acted as liaison between the group and corporate management, handling the budget and administration, from the group’s inception in 2002 until Knight-Ridder’s sale in 2006.

Chair, SATW Travel Editors Council

Jane Wooldridge served from 2004-2006, handling negotiation for the group’s annual professional development conference, enlisting volunteers and leading creation of new formats and standards for the group’s annual professional development conferences and drawing new members from all media.

Director, Society of American Travel Writers

Jane Wooldridge served as a member of the Board of Directors from 2004-2006, guiding the effort to revamp the organization’s in-house publication. She remains involved in committees dedicated to membership qualification and professional development.

Program chair, Travel Editors Council

Jane Wooldridge served as program chair for SATW’s Editors Council’s 2003 conference, arranging professional development speakers and panels for the two-day conference, and creating a new format for sharing challenges and solutions among editors.

Executive Producer / Executive Editor, Destination Florida

Jane Wooldridge hired, trained and managed staff in three cities as she led creation of this pioneering editorial travel website. She served as a member of the company’s strategic team, coordinating with leadership within Destination Florida and with corporate parents Knight-Ridder and Tribune Cos. and the joint-venture’s seven sister newspapers in Florida. Duties included site conception and implemention, and budget and staff administration with paid and volunteer staffs, selection and coordination of freelancers, and publication on both the World Wide Web and America Online.

Product Development

Jane Wooldridge envisioned these products to expand The Miami Herald Media Company's reach beyond its traditional readers, engendering new audiences and new advertising oppourtunities. Working with divisions both within and beyond the company, she worked with others to make them realities.

WG: Weekend Getaways

This new free monthly magazine uses repurposed content from The Miami Herald to serve South Florida travelers who don't subscribe to the newspaper - and the advertisers seeking to reach them. Distribution is through salons, coffee shops and other places where South Floridians linger.

Travel Magazine

This glossy quarterly targeted the 100,000 upscale Miami Herald subscriber households that define Miami as one of the 20 wealthiest cities in the world according to UBS.

The Travel Experience

This innovative consumer expo reached beyond standard formats, offering interactive experiences enabling showgoers to test out hotel beds and airline seats, race to pack a carry-on suitcase, sample recipies from faraway places, practice digital photography skills, partake in mini exercise classes and spa treatements, and converse with experts on travel experiences from safaris to hip hotels.

South Florida Album

This in-newspaper section was created to satisfy the demand for society coverage without stressing resources. Originally envisioned as a revenue-neutral solution combing freelance content with paid photo coverage, Album has proven so successful that it now spans multiple pages in both English and Spanish and reaps a profit.

Destination Florida

This pioneering website was a joint venture between Knight Ridder and Tribune. Repurposed content from seven Florida newspapers were augmenting with tips, maps, message boards and other interactive features in an award-winning site heralded as the first-ever editorial destination site. Originally created by Tribune on the AOL platform, the site was defined and expanded to the Web under Wooldridge’s leadership. The company closed in 1996.

RSVP

This 1990's lifestyle magazine combined celebrity, art, fashion and home in an upscale, glossy broadsheet.