Shafqat Islam

Shafqat Islam is the current General Manager at Optimizely and a previous Media Council Member & Next Big Thing Advisory Board at The Paley Center for Media. Shafqat has also been the Cofounder & CEO at NewsCred, where they have helped transform brands into storytellers.

Shafqat started their journey in 2007 when they cofounded NewsCred with a couple of friends. They have since built a team of 200 people across three continents and have raised 90M in funding. They have also been able to count some of the largest companies in the world as their customers.

In 2020, the content services side of NewsCred was acquired by Industry Dive, which was a great outcome for employees and investors. They spun out and rebranded their high growth software business to Welcome Software.

Shafqat is most proud of being one of the first companies in their category and having a hand at shaping the industry that they now call content marketing.

Shafqat Islam attended the University of Pennsylvania, where they earned a BSE in Computer Engineering and a BA in Economics.

They work with Peter Yeung - Chief Information Officer & Global Data Protection Officer, Aniel Sud - CTO, and Laura Thiele - Chief People Officer. Their manager is Alex Atzberger, CEO.