Erika Badan

About Erika Badan

Erika Ayers Badan is a digital innovator, disruptor, and seasoned executive on the cutting edge of culture, entertainment, content creation, distribution, and monetization. As an early adopter of internet culture, Erika has always been interested in what’s next; driving digital entrepreneurship and large-scale revenue growth within companies. Erika is the host of the WORK podcast and the author of The Great Ones Play Hurt on Substack. She is the author of “Nobody Cares About Your Career: Why Failure is Good, The Great Ones Play Hurt and Other Hard Truths” released in June, 2024. Intertwined with anecdotes from her own career, Erika shares insights into how work really works and how you can get it to work for you. She serves on the boards of global technology leader AXON Enterprise (AXON), The Premier Lacrosse League, and VICE. Erika is the founder of Work Like A Girl a community of professional women built on Slack. Erika was named CEO of Food52 in April, 2024. Over her 19 month tenure, she removed over $20M in cost from the business, re-structured all operations, put the company on a path to profitability and completed asset sales to Marquee Brands, Form Portfolios and Hudson Valley Lighting Group in February, 2026. As the first-ever CEO of media magnate Barstool Sports, Erika led the company through explosive growth, expanding the company from a regional blog to a national powerhouse brand and media company. During her 9 years steering the company, Barstool became a top ten podcasting publisher in the US, with the world\'s #1 sports, hockey, golf, and music podcasts, and a top 6 brand globally on TikTok. While at Barstool Sports, Erika launched over 35 brands, including breakout franchises like Pat McAfee, Bussin with the Boys and Call Her Daddy. Fast Company named Erika as one of its \"Most Creative People in Business.\" Forbes has ranked amongst the \"Most Powerful Women in U.S. Sports.” She has also been named on The Big Lead\'s list of \"The 75 Most Powerful People in the Sports Media Business\" as well as Crain\'s New York\'s \"Notable Women in the Business of Sports.” Adweek has also named Erika as one of its \"Most Powerful Women in Sports\" Erika has also held several senior roles at influential media and technology companies, including Microsoft, AOL, Demand Media, Fidelity Investments, Digitas and Yahoo!

Experience

1. Board Member

   VICE Media

   Feb 2025 — Present

Education

• Colby College

  BS

Skills

• Digital Media
• Strategy
• E-Commerce
• Online Advertising
• B2b
• Mobile Devices
• Web Analytics
• Big Data
• Marketing Communications
• Behavioral Targeting
• Strategic Partnerships
• Digital Marketing
• Sem
• Go-to-Market Strategy
• Analytics
• Advertising
• Saas
• Sales Operations
• Marketing
• Sales Management
• Creative Strategy
• Digital Strategy
• Leadership
• Product Marketing
• Ad Networks
• Marketing Strategy