Charlie Fink is a VR and tech consultant, and former Disney, AOL, and AG Interactive executive. In the ‘90s, Fink was EVP & COO of VR pioneer Virtual World Entertainment and is now a frequent speaker at conferences like CES, AWE, ARinAction, VR Toronto and Digital Hollywood. Fink is a regular contributor to Forbes, HuffPost, and VR Voice, where he writes about AR, VR, and New Media. He is the author of Charlie Fink's Metaverse, a continuously updated AR-enhanced guide to VR & AR to be released by Cool Blue Press on January 9, 2018.

 

Over the past thirty years working as an award-winning writer, executive, and producer, Charlie Fink has created and launched new media brands for Disney, AOL, and American Greetings. He is best known for coming up with the original idea for Disney's "Lion King" (Bambi in Africa). In addition to his work on the second golden age at Disney animation (‘85-’92), Fink was EVP & COO of Virtual World Entertainment, a pioneering VR startup the used flight simulation technology to network players together in virtual reality. The company later sold to Microsoft. In January, 1996, Fink joined AOL as the SVP & Chief Creative Officer of AOL Studios (‘95-’99).

 

Fink left AOL in mid-1999 to start a venture-backed personalized e-news service, eAgents, that was acquired by American Greetings Interactive (AGI) just twelve months after it was created. Fink served as President and Chief Creative Officer of AGI for three years, and its Chairman for several years thereafter. During his tenure, AGI built a 20M advertising business with offices around the country and acquired its two biggest competitors, Blue Mountain, and eGreetings, enabling it to take the category from "free" to "fee". AGI has over 6 M subscribers and is the most profitable unit of American Greetings. In 2005 Fink created Charlie Company, an SEO/SEM affiliate marketer, and consultancy that was sold in a private transaction in 2014. For client Moveon.org, Charlie created "The Other 98%" which has 5.4 M followers on Facebook.

 

Charlie Fink is also a producer of live theater in New York City. Over the past fifteen years, as Producing Artistic Director of The New Musical Foundation, Fink has produced over 30 readings, workshops, and off-Broadway productions, which have won over ten awards. His critically acclaimed off-Broadway musical comedy, "Baghdaddy", which the NY Times called "an important, cunning, rock-solid musical comedy," closed in July 2017. Fink is Chairman emeritus of the Drama Desk Award-winning NY Musical Festival. His next show will have something to do with VR or AR.