About Your Presenter
Brian Gruber has spent 40 years studying, innovating, marketing and creating new forms of public media. His Pepperdine M.A. in Broadcast Journalism led him to serve as the first director of marketing for public affairs pioneer C-SPAN. He hosted two live call-in shows and interviewed Cesar Chavez, Nancy Pelosi and John McCain.
He then worked in cable television in the United States and Australia, and founded three digital media firms. FORA.tv, named one of the 50 best websites by TIME magazine, enabled video access to the world’s great forums: the Aspen Ideas Festival, the Chatauqua Institution and the New York Public Library. His BeNow.tv livestreamed author events from legendary bookstores and editorial meetings of publications like The New Republic. ShowGo.tv streamed live jazz concerts from iconic clubs in four countries. Gruber conducted hundreds of interviews with the likes of Norman Mailer, Quincy Jones and Malcolm Gladwell.
Brian is the author of four books. In “WAR: The Afterparty,” he visited scenes of 50 years of U.S. military interventions to interview those affected from both ends of the gun barrel. He wrote “Six Days at Ronnie Scott’s,” interviewing jazz legends like Billy Cobham on the creative process and the history of jazz fusion. He traveled to four continents to conduct interview interviews for the co-authored “Surmountable,” gathering stories of transcendence and transformation from activists, thought leaders, and witnesses to seismic political change.
Gruber lives on the island of Koh Phangan, Thailand where he leads a writer’s group and helps aspiring authors take their creative projects to completion.