Josh Northridge

12/21/18

Josh Northridge graduated from NL in 1995. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Communications with a History minor from Muhlenberg College. While at Muhlenberg Josh played football, joined the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, was a Communications Club member and served as a Student Advisor.

After graduating college in 1999 Northridge started his first job in New York City at the Mediacom agency as a Junior Media Buyer. “The pay was terrible but the perks of the business were nice. I’d eat lunch at some of the best restaurants in New York, drink expensive wine, go see Yankee playoff games, but not have enough money for a decent meal on the weekends. I found a lot of different ways to improvise ramen noodles while living in a basement studio apartment in Queens.” Josh would work his way up at Mediacom, eventually becoming a Supervisor and overseeing a team and a budget of several million dollars. He also was able to move out of the basement studio apartment in Queens.

In 2005 Northridge switched over to the sales side of media at MTV Networks, selling commercial time and digital (internet) video/banner ads for Country Music Television (CMT) and CMT.com. The office was in Times Square. While country music is big in central PA, it didn’t exactly have a huge following or generate a lot of interest in the Big Apple. “My upbringing in Jonestown and vast knowledge of the Dukes of Hazzard served me well.” After a little more than two years at MTV Networks, Josh left and began work at the Sundance Channel where he sold media and sponsorships. While at the Sundance Channel he was able to attend the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, which was a highlight each year. He keeps a photo of his meeting with Robert Redford in his office to this day.

Then in 2012 an Account Executive opportunity at NBC News became available. Josh eagerly interviewed for it and got the job based almost exclusively on the reputation he had cultivated in the media industry over the previous thirteen years. Josh has been at NBC since then and is now Vice President of Advertising Sales for the NBC News Group, which includes the Today Show, Nightly News with Lester Holt, Meet the Press, MSNBC, and CNBC. He is responsible for overseeing a team that sells the commercials, sponsorships, and marketing efforts for all of those programs and networks to the biggest advertisers in the world.

Josh currently resides in Pleasantville, New York. He has been married to his wife Eileen for more than 13 years and they have a nine year old daughter. Eileen works at Hallmark Channel and volunteers at the local elementary school. Their daughter plays softball, soccer, and basketball and Josh enjoys coaching her in youth athletics. Josh also enjoys reading non-fiction, playing the guitar, grilling up steaks in the backyard and jogging. He has run several 5k and 10k races, four half-marathons and in 2015 he completed the New York City Marathon. He and his family like to travel, having been to four foreign countries in 2018 (Dominican Republic, Iceland, France, and England). The thing that Northridge appreciated the most about his time at NL was the mentorship of the teachers and coaches, and the ability to do many different things. “High school is a great time to soak it all in and try everything. I was in the Varsity Club, on the football and baseball teams, and in the chorus and high school musicals. I hesitate to name specific teachers and coaches for fear of leaving someone out, but know that if you were on the staff at NL in the early-to-mid 90s you had a positive effect on me.”

The following is Northridge’s advice for current NL students: Whatever you do, do it the best you can. Get there a little earlier than everyone else. Stay a little later. Keep your word. Do the jobs or tasks that no one else wants to do. Create your own luck. Don’t blame others. And for God’s sake, never get a basement studio in Queens.