BIOGRAPHY

Todd Defren
Principal, Shift Communications

Todd Defren currently leads client services and business development efforts for the $10M firm.

Working in high-tech public relations for approximately 15 years, Defren currently specializes in Social Media strategies and is widely noted for creating the first template for Social Media News Releases in 2006; he followed up with a template for Social Media-optimized online newsrooms in early 2007.

Prior to SHIFT, Defren was at Sterling Hager, joining in 1994 as an account manager and reaching the level of managing director of the San Francisco office in August 2000. His earlier experience included managing the strategic and tactical corporate communications at ENTEX Information Services, a $2 billion New York-based systems integrator, now part of Siemens AG.

Defren has served as a visiting professor at Emerson College in Boston, lecturing on marketing and public relations on the Internet. In 2006, Defren was named a Research Fellow and member of the Advisory Board of the Society for New Communications Research.

Education: bachelor's degree in literature from Bard College (Annandale, NY).