Business
fact, the opposite is true, as Sree
and his wife, Roopa Unnikrishnan,
resisted involving their children
in social media. “People were
surprised,” he says. “We were among
the last to get the kids cell phones.
You don’t need one when you’re a kid
– and we saw that lots of technology
people were restricting the use
of technology with their kids.
Now the twins are 12 and they
are on Instagram.”
So are they aware now of how
prominent their dad is?
“Well,” Sree replies, “they’ve been
dragged to some events, so they are
somewhat aware, but not the full
range of what I do.”
The “full range” of what he does is
impressive: In 2015, he was named
to Fast Company’s list of 100 Most
Creative People in Business, in part
for the work he and the museum are
doing on the future of culture.
In 2015, he joined CBS Radio’s
new Play.It podcast network with
the “@Sree Show: Talking tech,
culture, entrepreneurship”
In 2009, he was named one
of AdAge’s 25 media people to
follow on Twitter and in 2010 was
named one of Poynter’s the 35 most
influential people in social media; in
2014, he was named the most
influential CDO in the US.
He is co-founder of SAJA, the
South Asian Journalists Association,
a group of more than 1,000
journalists of South Asian origin
across the United States and Canada.
Though Sree’s involvements have
been international in scope, he says
he has “an immigrant mindset” that
makes him more appreciative of his
city and his country. Understandable,
given the fact that his father was a
diplomat for the Indian government,
a post that meant frequent
relocations. So Sree was born in
Tokyo, Japan and grew up in the
USSR, Fiji and India. He attended
kindergarten in Moscow, P.S. 6 in
Manhattan, Marist Brothers High
School in Suva, Fiji and St. Stephen’s
College in Delhi, India. (He graduated
from Columbia University with a
Bachelor of Arts in history and
received a Master of Science degree
in Journalism from Columbia’s
Graduate School of Journalism.)
Today, as a leader in all things
digital, Sree retains his love for
the printed page and believes that
technology can’t completely replace
the daily newspaper. He mentions
that “in other parts of the world,
print newspapers are still strong.”
They are also strong in the
Sreenivasan household; Sree
subscribes F