Who’s Who

Kilian Schalk

Content Workflow design & implementation

PurpleGray came about in 2014 because Kilian felt that the people around him on the front lines of magazine production had a big role to play in solving the industry’s problems. He wanted to enable them. He saw an opportunity for publishers. And he’s been busy ever since proving that it is extremely good business to involve whole teams in the process of workflow (re)design and management.

A popular and energetic speaker with an international audience, Kilian has helped clients large and small re-think and re-invent how they produce (multi-channel) content.

Before PurpleGray, and even before he was the youngest Production Manager in Rolling Stone history, Kilian earned his Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Vassar College and found his calling at the Prague Post and the Tribune de Prague. As Technical Director of Digital Projects for The New Yorker, he was integral to the launch of the magazine’s website, digital archive, and kindle, nook, audible.com and iPad editions and steered the production department through a six-fold increase in (digital) output without compromising print quality or creating burnout.

As Managing Editor for Editorial Development at Condé Nast, Kilian helped define and implement cultural change across eighteen titles. He also began to think deeply about the unique challenges and opportunities faced by legacy brands in today’s environment, and was on-hand four years later to create and guide the blueprint for a workflow overhaul of Vanity Fair.

His successful repositioning of America Media, one of the oldest periodicals in the United States, to ‘lead the conversation about faith and culture’ in the 21st century cemented Kilian’s conviction that workflow holds the key to transformative potential. He has gone on to work extensively with Catholic publishers in the United States, most recently by guiding successive cohorts of small publishing teams through the content-first workflow transformation process, and hopes to further develop this program in partnership with other industry groups. His goal is to support publications everywhere as they learn to cope with permanent change.

Jennifer McDermott

Business Manager • editor

Jennifer sails the ship. She and Kilian have worked together in a variety of contexts for more than twenty years and she not only came up with the name PurpleGray, she has steered the company through every stage of its development so far.

A writer/editor whose credits include radio, assorted anthologies, and the Fodor’s Travel Guides, Jennifer has studied maps and the use of symbolism by McDonald’s in Europe, worked in a bookshop, run a theatre, and taught Viola Spolin to middle schoolers. She is also a graduate of the International School of Geneva, the Sea Education Association, and Vassar College. She was for fifteen years an integral part of the Geneva Writers Group, and she holds two passports (American and Swiss).

In her current capacity as navigator for a small business, Jennifer continues to supply the strategic vision for PurpleGray, make connections that create opportunity, and oversee program development. She also advises as needed on every project, performs all business management functions, and dabbles in marketing. She is very good at learning whatever needs to be learned.