PORTFOLIO�Jigsha Desai
Updated February 2026
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Index & Content
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Introduction & timeline
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Introduction
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I am a strategic communications and editorial leader with 20 years of experience bridging journalism, marketing and technology to build scalable content ecosystems while growing audience.
A translator and bridge-builder, I turn complexity into clarity — aligning creators, leaders and systems around shared goals. I’ve tested and experimented with a variety of video, social and content to maximize creativity and increase connection with both internal and external customers.
I thrive in customer and member engagement.
Jigsha Desai�(Visit my LinkedIn profile)
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Jigsha’s career timeline
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Knoxville News Sentinel
Did everything: homepage curation, innovate with video, social media, newsroom training
USA TODAY NETWORK
Formed a region-wide audience team with about 20 producers serving 17 newsrooms. �Created onboarding plans, team policies, training, culture-building. This audience team became a model for the company.
Naples Daily News
Coached newsroom, grew audience across web, social and app platforms, presented metrics and data. Member of the Editorial Board.
Post and Courier�Led digital news and digital marketing teams. Strengthened digital news literacy, created analytics dashboards, stabilized staffing. Emphasized A/B testing with newsletters.
Gannett�Drove consumer marketing growth and revenue for two news brands. Created templates and playbooks for events and processes. Designed direct mail campaigns, events, new designs. Brought journalism focus to marketing campaign and events. Regularly engaged with subscribers.
2013-2019
2002-2013
2019-2022
2023
2023-2025
David Lawrence Centers for Behavioral Health�Build and strengthen partnerships, expand awareness of behavioral health resources, and connect community needs with the right programs and people. Lead presentations and outreach across Collier County, build relationships with faith organizations and help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health through community engagement and education.
2026 - current
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Writing examples
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Writing on LinkedIn
I’ve become more active on LinkedIn recently to grow my brand. Here are some recent samples from September-December 2025
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Gamifying a family walk�How I turned a family walk into a game, based on feedback from my son. We came up with Heart Step!
Incorporating YouTube in a workflow�I view systems both close-up and from afar, allowing me to discover logical efficiencies. I wrote about how I did just that by incorporating YouTube in a video workflow.
When your online network meets IRL
Have you ever met your social network in person? I did that. And it was more special than I had imagined.
Working hurricanes
Eight lessons that stayed with me on running a remote audience team when Hurricane Ian slammed into Southwest Florida as a Category 4 storm.
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Promotional coverage
Examples of stories I wrote to promote initiatives and engagement events I organized when I did consumer marketing for the Naples Daily News.�
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Tasting the Tropics�One tasty aspect of living in paradise is the tropical fruit we get to enjoy. A variety of lychee and mango trees can be found growing in front yards and backyards across Southwest Florida. And during this time of the year, those trees are laden with juicy fruit.
Apps and insights�The Naples Daily News is inviting readers to a special event to meet new food and dining reporter Kendall Little.
This event was cancelled after I was laid off as there was no one else who knew how to run the event.
Civic seminars with Sandy Parker�Each year, the people we elect to Florida's state government approve a nearly $120 billion budget and pass hundreds of laws.
Learn who we elect, when and how in this civic seminar.
At the Table
A promotional story on the dining event I pioneered in the company where I worked with a restaurant our dining team to connect our subscribers to a local restaurant.
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“Trending” columns
When I worked at the Knoxville News-Sentinel, my team and I would write a weekly column on digital life. These columns are from 2013 and 2012. They’re dated but show lengthier work than stories or content typically aimed at a search audience.
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How our Web coverage of Bonnaroo has changed through the years
The News Sentinel's coverage of the music and arts festival in Middle Tennessee changed a lot in the 2010s.
Thank you, Knoxville, for these wonderful 10 years
It's funny how life turns out; the plans I had for myself as a young college student had gone by the wayside. Instead I was living a life I had never quite imagined.
News of Yahoo's pregnant CEO inspires
When news broke that Marissa Mayer had been picked as Yahoo's new CEO, I barely paid attention. That changed the next day, when I learned that Mayer, 37, was pregnant.
Meditation and the power of a quiet mind
This fear of missing out is messing with our sanity.
When was the last time you sat in silence? Or took a walk or run without listening to a podcast or music? When did you let your mind just be?
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Newsletters
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Newsletters
New dining reporter
I worked with the newsroom and marketing operations to promote a new dining reporter. I designed the header and delivered copy, links and subject information. I also determined the send list and tested all before our final send.
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Newsletters
Region-wide messaging
As the leader for Florida’s audience team, I did a lot of internal communication with journalists and editors across teams. Here is an example of what a regular email would look like sent to a 400+ distribution list.
The company used SalesForce Marketing Cloud for external customers.
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Newsletters
Engagement messaging
I worked with our engagement lead on marketing operations to come up with content emails to help increase loyalty. A hit were using old, but evergreen content, on what to do in Florida in the spring.
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Design
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Social media graphics
I built these social cards in Canva. With little fresh photography to use, I focused on graphics and design.
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Program design
I designed ads that were included in event programs where we were a sponsor. The goal was threefold: show our brand, localize to the event, have a call to action.
I also designed business cards — a creative then used by others on the team.
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Reader engagement
I created and designed all this collateral to engage with our subscribers. The Athlete of the Week car magnets were a favorite.
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Chamber ad
This ad was designed to display at the Cape Coral Chamber of Commerce Visitor’s Center. I used a template for a regular News-Press frontpage and then conceived and designed the content and copy in Canva.
It was displayed as an ad in front of the Cape Coral’s visitor center.
Print mailer
I designed and worked with the LocalIQ production team to print and deliver this direct mail postcard that was targeted to a specific demographic in certain ZIP codes in Collier County.
I included my Google Voice number to help with customer service and track interest. I received over a dozen calls.
AI prompting
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AI-prompted design
I mostly designed graphics in Canva using its AI agent as I did not have a graphic designer to work with. The coloring pages were given out at festivals and to help with reader engagement, They were popular!
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AI-prompted design
I used Copilot to help me create a quiz on Florida. It generated the questions and I edited it to make sure it was correct and relevant to our audience.
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Video examples
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Interviews
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I worked with our opinion editor to create a workflow where we filmed editorial board interviews on an iPad and then processed them to publish on YouTube and on naplesnews.com.
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Social video
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Sourced and vetted UGC to then edit and compile these clips into a story that resonated with out audience. Instead of showing flooding in a series of clips, I stitched the submitted clips to show what flooding looked like in a neighborhood in Naples.
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Documentary video
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When I worked in Knoxville, our team was an early adopter of video. We did a lot of short clip videos for a series called RandomThis (this was before iPhones were available).
I also led the team that created this powerful documentary of a horrific crime in Knoxville. I storyboarded the video, interviewed parents, shot footage and was an editor. It received a lot of attention.
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Event planning & presence
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Cars on Fifth
This was my first event. I designed the event space, creative and swag for a Cars on Fifth event in downtown Naples.
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Expos & Seminars
I designed the event space, creative and swag. This woman purchased a subscription to our product after chatting with me.
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High School Sports Awards
Event space with dual branding and talking to subscribers about our giveaway. I also designed and printed the postcard we used to announce our giveaway to grow our leads.
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Public speaking & presentations
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Community engagement
I’ve spoken to over 100 people (Rotary, Kiwanis, faith leaders, students) about the variety of care and services offered by David Lawrence Centers. I have also given campus tours and answered a variety of questions about our services.
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Activities
Learned how to distill information specific to certain audiences and given tours and relevant examples to help explain our services and programs. ��Examples here are showing how our immersive reality therapy suite works and creating community engagement activities relevant to our audiences.
The rainbow sticker idea was something I came up with a colleague for a Back to School event where we had students think about their feeling about going back to school, and use the corresponding sticker key to help fill out the rainbow.
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Thank you.
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