
I recently sat down with Bant Breen on The UNCAGED Show to discuss my career as founder and CEO of BrightLine, providing advanced advertising and working with every major broadcasting platform from NBCU to Hulu. This is an edited excerpt from our discussion.
Bant Breen:
Welcome to Uncaged. Today we’re speaking with Jacqueline Corbelli. I know Jackie best from her role as the founder, chairman and CEO of BrightLine. BrightLine is a major technology player in the connected TV space. Really, I’d say one of the foundational companies in the space and as we’ve seen, the world of Netflix and Hulu and all these things take over everything we do with a visual or video platform. BrightLine is right in the thick of things, but Jackie has done so much more than that. Every time I speak they seem to be working on something new. She is also the founder of the US Coalition on Sustainability. They’ve done so many things. One of the things is the platform they’ve built called SustainChain, which I’m sure we’re going to talk about today. It’s a really important platform that allows folks to really tap into supply chains in a much more sustainable way. And so, we’ll talk about how that’s working. Jackie has a broad background in a number of other things. But, you know, I think today we’re going to probably touch on all of those things in some form or fashion. But really, I’d say we’re going to learn a little bit more about how Jackie thinks and how Jackie approaches problems. You know, anybody who’s worked with you, Jackie, knows you have a very methodical way of doing these things, and that’s why you’ve been able to build this stuff. So, I’m excited to get into this. But before we start, Jackie, tell us a little bit about you and your career.
Jacqueline Corbelli:
Well, first of all, thank you. And I’ve been a huge fan of yours and love what you’re doing through this vehicle. And I appreciate you having me. Absolutely. And it’s funny, people ask me to tell them a little bit about myself. And I generally, you know, sort of say nothing that different from anybody else. You know, I grew up in a small town. I went away to school and came to the big city and started to get involved in the financial sector, largely because I had a lot of loans to pay off after I graduated from school. But the experience really became as long as for everybody, right? It just starts us down that path and where it went from there. After 15 or so years in that sector, I went toward starting my own company BrightLine. And I started that company 21 years ago back when Connected TV was called Connected TV and TV Dead if you remember when that went online and digital media started to really reawaken us and we just persisted. I persisted. That’s I guess one of the things that is a thread throughout my life: persistence. We knew that technology was not going to cause the extinction of television, but it was going to redefine it and redefine our audience’s relationship with it. And so BrightLine is enjoying a really fun time right now because of the growth of connected TV. But I’ve also been extremely lucky to be able to get involved in other things that I’m very passionate about. A lot of it is rooted in world affairs, in which I got my degree at Columbia. And most recently you mentioned the U.S. Coalition on Sustainability and sustained changes. I think that there is probably a much better way for us to approach and tackle global supply chains in this. And, you know, this need in this critical time, you know, to figure out how we can get to sustainability and address climate change and things like that. And that’s where the US Coalition on Sustainability came into play, as well as the technology that I created called SustainChain.
Bant Breen:
Yeah, you have an incredible network that you’ve built over the years and certainly you’re thinking always underpins with some form of a technology, utilizing technology in a clever, efficient way. A way to scale solutions. And I think everyone listening needs to understand. And so, tell me a little bit about how you think through some of these challenges. I know one of the things that, you know, you and I say off the cuff sometimes is that all problems are solvable if the will is there. Talk more about that.
Jacqueline Corbelli:
Yes. And also, if you just believe that it’s there, and you believe that it can happen. I think that’s a big part of all of this is and you know, just to answer your question, I put everything through this same lens of thinking, what’s the ideal, you know, the reality that we live in, whether it’s how television is going to be? Not just something we watch and get talked at with, you know, how can it be something that becomes an encounter that we get immersed in and so on. So that’s the BrightLine thing. Then thinking, there’s got to be a better way to help the world get cooler. And it really does come from the same place, which is, I’m going to dare to get out a clean sheet of paper and draw it. What does it look like when we get there and compare that back to where we are and start to look at the things tease apart, like what are the big sticking points and sources of value? And it’s that kind of approach of getting out in front, right, and putting yourself in a place where you can look back at the path that got you there. And to your point, it just comes down to the method. It’s a framework. Right. And again, just having the audacity to think that implementing that type of thinking is perceived as valuable by others, you can make money from that if you’re in business or you can get the support and advocacy of people who think you have something when it comes to solving big problems.
Bant Breen:
Definitely. Well, thank you so much, Jacqueline, for being on Uncaged. I really enjoyed our conversation, and look forward to having you back on the show.
To see the full interview on the Uncaged YouTube channel, go to: