Suzi Pond ’01 translated a self-determined major into a self-started media company

For Suzi Piker Pond ’01, founder of the Maine-based storytelling company Redbird Media Group, curiosity has always landed her ahead of the curve. 

She pursued two majors at Skidmore: a psychology major because she wanted to learn about herself and humanity, and a self-determined major because she wanted to create a path all her own. As she built her self-determined major in hypertext writing, she found pivotal support from Associate Professor Emeritus of English Michael Marx. 

“Coding was just starting to come on the scene in the late ’90s, and I was interested in learning to do storytelling online, which was barely a medium,” Pond says. “I loved that he was so supportive and allowed me to essentially create a major to not only build new skill sets but to enter new territory.”

Skidmore students each year declare self-determined majors that have ranged from collaborative arts to music technology and public health, with the guidance of dedicated faculty. 

When Pond graduated from Skidmore, knowing how to code translated into job offers. Her self-determined major began to open doors — and, as she says, she was able to enter the field of journalism through the back door. 

“They needed people with my skills. You couldn’t even really go to school for online journalism, coding, and storytelling at that time — it just didn’t really exist, even at the master’s level. It was very new media that was literally just coming online.”

Pond worked for a number of magazines, including Boston Magazine and Philadelphia Magazine, eventually finding her way to a daily newspaper in Maine, “which I loved,” she says.

After working in journalism, she entered the world of nonprofit communications, where she continued to work in storytelling while also applying what she learned through her psychology major.

“I had a great job title; I was chief storyteller, which was unheard of,” she says. “Again, thanks to Skidmore, I was on the cutting edge.”

Five years into her nonprofit experience, Pond began yearning to tell stories beyond those of one organization. Again, she realized she wanted to strike out on her own.

She started Redbird Media Group about 11 years ago and has since built it into a B Corp — a private, for-profit business certified by the nonprofit organization B Lab for meeting high standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability. Well-known examples of B Corps include Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s, and Tom’s of Maine.

“By building Redbird using the B Corp framework, I was really able to align my values with my business practices and the focus of the stories I was telling.”

“I couldn’t find what I was building anywhere else, so in the Skidmore way, I just built it.”Suzi Pond '01, founder of Redbird Media Group

Through authentic video and audio storytelling in the areas of conservation, environmental preservation, and social impact, Pond is making a measurable difference in the communities she serves.

“One of the major stories we told last year was for Trust for Public Land, which is a national nonprofit that helps make land accessible. That effort helped raise money to return 30,000 acres to the Penobscot tribe in Maine.”

She also led a recent project around youth mental health, creating four short PSAs using youth-driven material gathered through focus groups. The goal of the well-received stories directed at other youths and their parents was to raise awareness around the challenges faced by youths today.

Pond is currently a one-woman show with a team of loyal contractors, which works well for her business, she says.

She finds that creative thought is at the center of what she does day in and day out. Unless she’s in the field filming, she can be found editing narrative or doing color grading in post-production.

“I’m not following a prescribed formula. Everything is from scratch, so you sort of have to get out of the way and let it make itself a little bit. For me, that’s why creative thought matters.”

Pond returned to campus this past spring to participate in the Skidmore Career Development Center’s “Careers That Make a Difference” panel in Wyckoff Center, where she offered advice to students hoping to find creative and meaningful careers.

“Be flexible and follow what interests you,” she says. “The most important thing is to find out what you like and what you don’t like, and the only way to do that is to jump in and try things. And just because you try something and you don’t like it, it doesn’t mean that you fail. It just means that you’ve learned.”

Pond says not needing to belong in any one silo and having the ability to experiment and try new things was what she loved most about Skidmore.

“I feel really lucky to have gone to Skidmore. I would never have my company or do what I do if I hadn’t gone here.”