SHANE SMITH Shane Smith is one of the founders of VICE magazine and the President of VICE’s media empire. In 1994, along with Suroosh Alvi, he helped start a small Montreal punk zine which would soon grow into the first ever free worldwide youth-culture monthly, with 22 international editions and a global circulation of over one million. Vice has since topped the Cassandra Report’s “trendsetter publications” poll for years running and has been lauded by outlets like Rolling Stone, CNN, and ABC as the voice of the current generation and a magazine without peer.

Under Shane’s direction, the company has expanded into a wide array of new territories. VICE’s music wing, VICE Records, was the first US label to spearhead the then unheard-of British grime movement, and has released albums by the likes of Bloc Party, the Streets, the Black Lips, and Justice. VICE Books has six American titles under its belt—including the massively popular VICE Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, Dear Diary, Skinema, and VICE Photo Book—with many more on the horizon. VICE has also pushed into the worlds of marketing and movie production with its own in-house ad agency (VIRTUE, boasting clients like Viacom, Vodafone and Nike) and three feature-length films released through VICE Films (the critically acclaimed Heavy Metal in Baghdad, Sundance and Berlinale official selection White Lightnin’, and the upcoming action thriller Dirty Bombs).

In 2007 Shane oversaw the launch of VBS.tv, VICE’s internet broadband network and an online video counterpart to the magazine’s cutting-edge journalism and cultural commentary. Through brutal exposés of places like Darfur and North Korea, as well as addictive, art-and-culture series like Soft Focus and Epicly Later’d, VBS is sounding the death knell of traditional broadcast media.

Shane graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, with a BA in English Literature and Political Science. He enjoys cold white wine and long, bubbly baths—preferably in tandem.