About Val Saunders

I grew up in Manhattan and now live in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn with my husband and teenage children.

After graduating with a B.A. in Anthropology and Economics from Smith College, I began my career in magazines. I worked in art and photo departments for Conde Nast and Gruner & Jahr. I then pivoted to the commercial side of the industry as a creative director for a large stock photo agency. The creative content space has been transforming rapidly and as disruption increased, I opted for an entrepreneurial route. I started by creating a production company with a small team, and then evolved that business into Tetra Images, which now represents the work of hundreds of professional photographers and videographers based all over the globe. In 2018, I designed and executed a plan to acquire a majority of the Blend Images collection (assets and brand) which doubled our content holdings and tripled our represented artists. Tetra is now one of the largest creative content providers in the world. We supply creative content to over 50 distribution partners including Adobe, Getty Images, and Shutterstock.

I am often asked what I am going to do with my DAV degree. The answer is: I am using it right now!

I have always used data to inform my business decisions but the DAV program has provided the framework for me to go far beyond my original skill level.

This program cultivates an aptitude for data applications and programming languages, access to world-class professors, and collaborative practice with other data-inspired students. I have employed classmates from The School of Information as freelancers for my business and have worked on real-world business development issues in some of my projects. The DAV program has been an energizing place to explore data, problem-solving, and disruption.

Interests

Prospect Park and Central Park: Fund-raising and volunteer gardening

Crisis Text Line: crisis counselor

Travel photography

Sports: Yoga, hiking, rollerblading, TRX, SLT, ocean kayaking

NBA: NETS Season ticket-holder since the team came to Brooklyn in 2012

Education

Pratt Institute, M.S. Data Analytics and Visualization

Smith College, BA Anthropology, Economics minor

St. Lawrence University, Junior Year Abroad in Kenya

Work Experience

Tetra Images & Blend Images, Owner & CEO, 15+ years

Corbis, Content Project Director

Comstock, Creative Director

Comstock, Photography Director

Gruner & Jahr, Photo Editor Fitness Magazine

Conde Nast, Freelance Photo Editor GQ and Glamour Magazines

Conde Nast, Associate Photo Editor Mademoiselle Magazine

Tech Skills

Python, R, SQL

Carto, Gephi, MySQL, OpenRefine, Photoshop, QGIS, Tableau