David Polk.
New York.
Now
All six built with Claude and ChatGPT.
Paletto
Your personal style filter while you shop online — combines color season theory with your own Pinterest-curated aesthetic to give real-time feedback on clothing as you browse. Fewer impulse buys, fewer returns, a wardrobe that actually feels like you.
Pledge Drive X-Ray
Regression-based analytics for public radio and TV pledge drives — turns accumulated fundraising data into predictions, insights, and optimized schedules. Built for development directors who want evidence, not just instinct.
LUFF
An AI-powered menswear discovery feed — tap what caught your eye and it learned your taste, surfacing pieces from hundreds of brands. Built it, shipped it, sunset it; the full story lives on as a case study with a working demo.
Read the case study & try the demo →Gaybr
Your gayborhood, in your pocket — the hyper-local events and community app for Fire Island’s Pines and Cherry Grove. See what’s happening tonight, RSVP, plan your ferry, and message the guys next door.
Extra Ticket
Pass a spare ticket to the right friend at face value — no fees, no awkward texts — or plan a ticketed outing your group actually agrees on. Tickets, between friends.
Strand
The AI audio workstation: generate voice, music, and sound effects with the best AI models, arrange them on a real timeline, and export finished audio — all in one place.
Selected Work
Enhance Speech — AI Audio Tool
Led product strategy for AI-driven audio editing in Premiere Pro — tools now used by more than 3 million creators. Enhance Speech won "Best of Show" at the 2024 NAB convention, and adoption of Adobe’s audio features grew 150%+ in under a year.
Adobe Podcast
Web-based AI audio editing platform with user-focused templates designed to make professional audio accessible to all creators.
Do You Speak Chopin?
Filmmaker Marian Marzynski’s documentary love letter to Chopin, centered on the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. I brought Marzynski to WFMT and executive produced the film.
Masters of Drag
YouTube series hosted by Peppermint (RuPaul’s Drag Race) telling the stories of American pioneers of drag performance. Digital lead.
Instrument 101
Educational video series exploring how instruments work and sound, making classical music accessible to new audiences. Co-executive producer.
Leading WFMT Chicago
Led the nonprofit fine arts station — program director at 29 (then the youngest at any major-market station in the country), later head of content and acting general manager — doubling listening and doubling digital engagement.
From broadcast booths to product roadmaps
I’ve worked in nonprofits and nonprofit leadership, the arts and music, and media — editorial, product, and audience strategy — across radio, TV, video, and podcasts, and, more recently, tech and creator tools.
Most recently I was a product manager at Adobe, working on AI audio and video tools in Premiere Pro and Adobe Podcast. Before that, I led digital strategy for PBS’s American Masters at WNET.
And before that, I led WFMT Chicago, a nonprofit fine arts station — classical music, news, and documentaries, with more than 250 live broadcasts a year — as head of content and acting general manager. I joined WFMT in 2006, assisting Studs Terkel with his final radio interviews — you can spot me in HBO’s documentary about him. I hosted a weekly live program, launched the station’s first podcasts in 2008, before most people knew what one was, and was promoted to program director at 29 — the station’s youngest in a long time — before eventually taking on that role.
I hold an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from Tufts, where I graduated summa cum laude. I live in New York. Full resume on this site, or on LinkedIn.
Music
Music runs through all of it. At WFMT I served as a producer, host, program director (head of content), and acting general manager. When I left after 14 years, I shared some of my favorite musical memories on air, and wrote down a few of them.
Away from work: I play trumpet, and piano (not well, though I’ve recently gotten back to practicing). The trumpet habit goes way back — drum major in high school, jazz and classical playing in wind ensembles, big bands, orchestras, and pit orchestras for musicals. At Tufts I kept it up: wind ensemble, the Latin big band, the pits for Chicago and A Little Night Music — plus the Boston College big band across town. In Paris, I played in the Sorbonne Big Band.
Since then I’ve performed with the Lakeside Pride Wind Ensemble in Chicago and the Queer Big Apple Corps in New York. In my Chicago years, the Old Town School of Folk Music got a lot of my evenings — guitar lessons, the klezmer ensemble, hip hop dance, their samba school and parade, and a brief, humbling stint in capoeira class. I also chaired the board of Ensemble Dal Niente, one of Chicago’s great new-music groups, early in their history.
Press
I once convinced Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be a guest DJ on my radio station. There’s a photo.
Notable LGBTQ Executives 2018
Recognized among Chicago’s Notable LGBTQ Executives for advancing industries and civic engagement.
The Man to Help Effect Change at WFMT
Profile on appointment as program director and vision for the station’s future.
In-the-Know Locals: Weekend Picks
Featured among notable Chicagoans sharing cultural recommendations.
WFMT’s New Blood
Coverage of the appointment as program director, at age 29, and the station’s future direction.
Music’s Importance to the LGBT Community
Feature discussion on classical music, cultural identity, and community.
Classical Station Ratings Growth
Reporting on WFMT’s audience gains under new programming leadership.
Say hi.
Open to consulting on audience and subscriber growth (including newsletter growth), live selling and pledge drives, and helping media organizations use AI in content production — plus product advising, podcast projects, and speaking about AI in creative tools.