Tom Watson

Tom Watson is Chief Strategy Officer of Changing Our World Inc., a national philanthropic services company he helped to found. Under his leadership, Changing Our World publishes onPhilanthropy.com, the largest online resource for philanthropy professionals. The company is also a national leader in the use of online fundraising and media technology on behalf of non-profit clients. Tom is responsible for the company’s marketing, communications, and technology; he is also heavily involved in business development and corporate partnerships for the firm.

Three years after its founding, Changing Our World became part of Omnicom’s Diversified Agency Services (NYSE: OMC) group in May, 2002.

Before joining Changing Our World, Tom was co-founder and co-editor of @NY, the pioneering Internet news and information service that has chronicled New York’s technology sector since 1995. The company was acquired by IntMedia Group (Nasdaq: INTM) in April 1999, two months before a successful initial public offering.

Tom has been a widely-read commentator on and analyst of Internet industry matters since the mid-1990s, writing columns for Inside Magazine, The New York Times and The Industry Standard. His work has also appeared in Wired, the Los Angeles Times and many other publications. Tom is also a co-author of the recent book, Fundraising on the Internet (Jossey-Bass, 2001).

Tom has frequently commented on Internet matters for many news outlets, including CNN, NPR and CNBC. He has spoken about the Internet and media technology at conferences and academic institutions including the American Society of Association Executives, the MIT Enterprise Forum, Blackbaud’s Annual Conference on Philanthropy, the ePhilanthropy Foundation, Content Management Summit, the Performance Institute, Association of Fundraising Professionals, the Software Summit, City University London, Harvard Business School, Columbia University and New York University.

Previously, Tom was the executive editor of The Riverdale Press, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper in the Bronx, where he covered politics, and won more than a dozen state and national awards for excellence in journalism. The paper won national acclaim during his tenure for not missing an issue after terrorists linked to Iran destroyed the newspaper's offices with firebombs.

Tom is a member of the executive board of directors of the New York Software Industry Association, and the board of directors of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy. He holds a BA in English literature from Columbia University, and has served as an adjunct professor of new media at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in Mount Vernon NY with his wife Beryl and three children, Veronica, Kelsey and Devon.

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