Ashley McCollum is the general manager of Tasty, BuzzFeed's global food network, which reaches 500 million people each month. Previously, she served as chief of staff to BuzzFeed CEO and founder Jonah Peretti, where she worked closely with Peretti and the executive team to shape strategy for company-wide initiatives, including running point on new R&D projects to extend the company’s longterm competitive advantage. Since joining BuzzFeed in 2012, McCollum has helped grow the company from a small 75 person startup with 20 million monthly unique visitors to a thriving international media company with over 1,400 employees and 7 billion monthly content views while rolling out dozens of new content verticals, hundreds of new hires, editorial initiatives and business deals. In June 2016, McCollum was named to Adweek’s “The 30 Most Influential People in Food” list and in January 2017, she was included on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list. Before joining BuzzFeed, McCollum worked in marketing & communications at NBC News and focused on digital and social initiatives. She studied Economics at Presbyterian College and lives in Los Angeles.