About Ron Waksman
Ron Waksman is one of Canada’s leading media and communications executives with over 30 years of experience in network television, radio and digital news.
Ron Waksman is one of Canada’s leading media and communications executives with over 30 years of experience in network television, radio and digital news. He is a change agent and a ‘from the ground’ up builder of new brands, content types, media platforms, collaborative technologies and digital workflows. He’s been at the vanguard of digital business transformation and optimization. Ron is a transformational, disruptive, agile and insightful advisor who finds creative and innovative solutions to urgent and complex communications, media relations and content problems. He’s a calm, rational influence under pressure who knows how to work collaboratively with your executive or management team in times of crisis. Ron has demonstrated a successful track record of superior storytelling and engaging multiplatform content that will reach and impact your audience. He has exceptional verbal and written communications skills and articulates complex objectives, ideas, and messaging logically, efficiently. Ron emphasizes the importance of vigilance and expertise in identifying, understanding and responding to business disruption in real-time using data analysis and forecasting. Ron’s ability to anticipate and respond to change on the distant horizon provides organizations with a vision advantage that helps them take control and set a clear direction, preventing much of the turbulent disruption that catches management teams off guard and places them in a reactive crisis mode.
Ron began his broadcasting career in 1989 at Global Television, the same week the Berlin Wall came down. He started as a TV script and continuity writer, quickly advancing to line-up editor, show producer, and executive producer. In 1995, Ron launched Global News’ first network national newscast with veteran Canadian journalist and anchor, the Hon. Peter Kent MP. In 2001, Ron left Global News briefly to pursue a new career opportunity that combined his love of aviation with strategic communications and media relations. As General Manager of Public Relations, Ron helped launch the fledgling airline Roots Air with the Roots company and Skyservice. Ron subsequently returned to Global Television as an executive producer-at-large, launching the network’s first daily consumer finance news program MoneyWise, which he also helped develop into one of the network’s first-ever reality programs.
Ron successfully built the network’s first election programming and developed its editorial decision desk. As a favour to ownership, Ron agreed to be seconded for three months to oversee the production of the Mike Bullard show, a 2004 late-night comedy and variety talk show that aired on the network. In 2005, Ron returned to local news as the news director for Global Ontario with executive editorial and operational oversight of more than 150 journalists, production and office staff. In 2008, he rejoined the Global Television network in the role of Executive Content Editor with oversight of journalistic standards and ethics. In 2012 Ron took over responsibility for Global News’ digital assets left over from the sale of Postmedia newspapers. He then launched the unprecedented digital transformation of the legacy television network to a digital first model. In 2018, Ron became Vice-President of National News at Corus Entertainment Inc. where he had editorial and operational oversight of all national news programming and network digital content as well as social distribution channels. Ron led the transformation of Global News from a legacy television newsgathering organization to one of the most highly regarded digital news operations in Canada. He took Globalnews.ca from a skeleton operation in 2012 to the number #1 private digital news provider in Canada in 2019 with more than a Billion page views and $18,000,000 in revenue. Ron was responsible for seamlessly integrating all of Corus radio’s digital news properties into the Globalnews.ca ecosystem. He invested heavily in the production of original short-form video, significantly boosting revenue and the network’s presence on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. Ron was also instrumental in helping to launch a branded content unit for Global News as well as the network’s first-ever national podcast programming. Ron also led the team of Global News’ award-winning investigative journalists.
Ron is the author and executive editor of the Global News Journalistic Principles and Practices, mandatory guidelines for editorial standards and professional codes of conduct for more than 300 multiplatform journalists in Canada and worldwide. Ron became the ombudsman for the network, administering professional codes of conduct and ethics for TV, radio and online while helping to solve complex regulatory, public relations and legal challenges.
In 2017, Ron co-authored the new Radio Television Digital News Association’s Code of Ethics which he helped update for the digital era. He is also an adjudicator with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, which adjudicates public complaints about broadcast standards. Ron studied physiological psychology at the University of Toronto and then obtained an Honours Diploma in Radio and TV Arts from Seneca College. He is a former private pilot who also has his drone licence. He lives and works in Toronto, Ontario.
