Claudio E. Cabrera is an award-winning audience development expert [SEO], journalist, and future author. He began his journalism career in 2004 while in his second year at Brooklyn College, when he landed an internship at the historic Black newspaper, the New York Amsterdam News. At the Amsterdam News, he covered the 2005 mayoral campaign and the likes of former president Barack Obama, Rev. Al Sharpton and Shaquille O’Neal. In 2006, he won an award from the Independent Press Association for his work uncovering a law that allowed phone companies in New York to charge families of inmates exorbitant rates for phone calls. Over a decade later, the state passed a law to make all prison phone calls free.

Upon graduating in 2008, Cabrera worked at Yoonew, his first job out of college. He developed his digital skills in the areas of public relations, editorial, SEO, social media and more. After Yoonew, he returned to the journalism world, taking on a role as both and editor and audience development manager for first Interactive One, and then at Black Enterprise. In his time at both news organizations, he struck up partnerships with the likes of AOL, The Huffington Post and Newser. He was also able to increase traffic by over 50% at both publications, and created a technology town hall series with President Obama and the White House that included many of the country’s top Black editors and journalists. With his success in this space, Folio Magazine named him one of the top audience development managers in the country in 2013.

In 2014, he worked at CBS Local as their audience development lead across the country, where he helped grow traffic by over 40% and led strategy for over 100 owned and operated radio and TV stations. In 2016, he joined The New York Times as a Senior Digital Strategist and is now their Deputy Off-Platform Director of News SEO. In his role at the Times, he has been able to grow the company’s traffic by over 40% and has led them to record years on search and in total audience.