Andrew Essex is the former Chief Executive officer of Tribeca Enterprises, a multi-platform storytelling company based in New York City, and the parent company of the Tribeca Film Festival. Until 2015, Andrew Essex was the Vice Chairman and founding CEO of Droga5, arguably the most celebrated creative agency on the planet, which was acquired by the William Morris Endeavor talent agency in 2013. In addition to winning multiple “Agency of the Year” awards, Droga5 has been featured in New York magazine, the New York Times, and the New York Observer. Andrew sits on the board of The American Advertising Federation, the iHeart Media Creative Advisory Counsel, Plus Pool, the Internet Advertising Bureau, and is a frequent public speaker on media, marketing and monetization strategies. He is an advisor to the White House American Office of Innovation and the Wharton SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management. He serves as an angel investor and advisors for myriad disruptive technology and consumer packaged good firms.
Prior to his role overseeing what The Guardian called “the most exciting agency on the planet,” he was an award-winning journalist and founding editor-in-chief of Absolute magazine, the acclaimed luxury lifestyle publication, which was named “one of the 50 Best Magazines in America” by the Chicago Tribune. Before running Absolute, Essex was the executive editor of Details magazine from 2000-2004, and its liaison to Madison Avenue. In that period the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) nominated the magazine for three General Excellence awards, along with multiple awards for Design and Photography, and repeat appearances on Ad Age’s “Hot List.”
Andrew has also held editorial posts, among other publications, at Entertainment Weekly, Salon.com, and The New Yorker, and served as a consultant for the launch of US Weekly magazine. He has served as a television commentator for ABC, CNN, Anderson Cooper, The View, FOX News, CNBC, E!, and Court TV. His writing—from cover profiles of the most interesting public figures of our time to long-form features to critical reviews—has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Outside, Entertainment Weekly, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Food & Wine, Allure, Interview, the Village Voice, the American Book Review, and Details. He is author of “The End of Advertising: Why It Had to Die and the Creative Resurrection to Come” and the co-author of three books: "A Very Public Offering: The Story of the Globe.com,” “Chasing Cool,” with former Barney’s CEO Gene Pressman, and “Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny,” with celebrated musician Nile Rodgers. Essex has an MA in American Literature from New York University. He lives with his wife and two children in Dumbo.
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