Shira Jeczmien

As Founder and CEO of SCREENSHOT Media, Shira oversees development and growth across the company’s digital agency and media arms. Shira has successfully created a next-generation media company that covers news, trends, fashion, sports and entertainment in a digestible way, focused on capturing the 18-24 audience without compromising on quality of content. Shira launched the business as a blog in 2019 to help the emerging Gen Z audience follow news and culture in an easily digestible way. Aside from a small funding allocation from Creative UK, SCREENSHOT Media has bootstrapped its growth from the start. Now employing a team of 40, it has posted 65% year-on-year revenue growth over the past three years, with a projected revenue growth of 200% in 2024. Shira chose not to take venture capital (VC) funding, instead deploying a laser-focused strategy on revenue generated from social media platforms and agency deals. Shira runs SCREENSHOT Media’s operations in a way that ensures maximum efficiency. For example, instead of running a single newsroom that caters to all social media platforms, Shira has organised SCREENSHOT Media’s news and content into platform-specific teams that are experts in generating hyper-specific content for individual platforms. Shira has created a diverse and young executive team who are able to produce authentic content – 85% of the team are under 28, and 50% are female. By assessing new hires through the lens of leadership potential as opposed to experience, Shira ensures SCREENSHOT Media’s work environment celebrates personal growth. This means people can grow into their role, giving employees ownership of their work knowing that they have the team’s full support. Under Shira’s leadership, SCREENSHOT Media does not mimic media structures that are seen across legacy publications, which are outdated and unfit for purpose in today’s media environment. Instead, SCREENSHOT Media is built on focused touch points across three key parts of distribution –publishing, shows, and creators–- as media and content production becomes more niche. These touch points ensure the team’s ideas remain dynamic and relevant for ever-changing news and social media trends cycles. Furthermore, the inclusive and accessible tone of voice encourages younger audiences to decide for themselves about the world around them. SCREENSHOT Media has now surpassed a monthly global reach of 250 million people across all platforms, 60% of whom are 18-24 years old. The more people that engage with SCREENSHOT Media, the more that major global brands pay attention. Under Shira’s leadership, SCREENSHOT Media has built a commercial agency arm, partnering with brands including Calvin Klein, Vinted and Huawei to successfully connect with and capture younger audiences through services such as digital strategy and in-house content. Shira uses SCREENSHOT Media’s unique insight into content consumed by next-generation audiences – and the platforms on which they choose to interact – to help brands understand and engage with a new generation of customers. Shira has developed a strategy which gives brands proprietary insights into the habits of next-generation audiences, by accurately tracking the latest trends using data collected from social platforms.