Anne Zehren

President

Anne Zehren is Mom to two boys ages 8 and 4.  When she’s not busy raising her kids, Anne’s other passion is raising the profile of brands. An award-winning leader, Anne joined Common Sense Media (previously serving on its Board of Directors) after years at Current TV, Teen People, Glamour, and Newsweek. Throughout her career as a media executive, Anne has created and built strong consumer brands which, when combined with innovative marketing, have experienced record-breaking growth. She believes great organizations enourage customers to help define and create the experience and products they want. "I joined Common Sense Media because I was alarmed by how much time kids spend with the media—more than twice as much time as they spend with their parents," she says. "We’re constantly inspired by the hopes and concerns of passionate parents and teachers who use our information to help raise great kids."

As president of sales and marketing for Al Gore's Current TV, Anne helped create, launch, and brand the first cross-platform TV network—the first to feature viewer-created content. Under her leadership, Current experienced extraordinary growth and attracted significant advertising revenue. As the launch publisher of Teen People, Anne led one of the fastest-growing magazines and teen web sites ever. Teen People’s circulation increased by more than 200 percent in its first four years, and, after three years, the magazine’s readership had topped 10 million. In addition, Teen People was the first magazine to launch with a companion web site. To keep the magazine's content unique and relevant, she established a network of 12,000 ahead-of-the-curve readers called Trendspotters™ who helped advise editorial and marketing decisions.

As a national authority on marketing and innovation, Anne has appeared frequently in media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Business Week, The New Yorker, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NPR, Entertainment Tonight, Extra, and E! She was a board member of the National Campaign Against Youth Violence and was named to President Clinton’s Executive Advisory Board on Youth Violence. Zehren believes that young people thrive when they have a voice.