Sean W. Malone

Chief Creative Officer

Sean is a leading expert on film, storytelling, and building creative teams.

Sean started his career in the music & film industries before shifting to the nonprofit world, where he’s built several successful creative teams—most recently as the Chief Product Officer & Executive Producer for Return on Ideas.

Prior to that, Sean served as Creative Director for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). There, his popular online series such as Out of Frame and Common Sense Soapbox generated hundreds of millions of impressions, tens of millions of views, millions of hours of watch time, and hundreds of thousands of comments. His work as a consultant continues to drive tens of millions of views and massive engagement for the organization. Two of his YouTube channels have earned Silver Play Buttons for amassing over 100,000 subscribers—over 450,000 in total (and counting).

Sean is also an accomplished filmmaker whose has produced (and often written & edited) thousands of online video projects, as well as numerous short documentaries which have won several awards at film festivals around the country.

Sean’s background as an artist includes direct experience working in a wide array of mediums (music performance & composition, photography, graphic design, screenwriting, and video production). Working in so many mediums has given Sean a uniquely effective skill set as a creative director.

That experience is combined with curiosity, empathy, conscientiousness, and a commitment to the high standard of excellence that only comes with years of professional creative. And together, all of these traits allow Sean to translate conceptual ideas, organizational values, and marketing goals into a vibrant and coherent creative vision that not only reaches target audiences, but which can actually be executed within the constraints of budget and time.

  • 2022-Present
    Executive Producer | Return on Ideas

  • 2016-2022
    Creative Director     | FEE.org

  • 2011-2016
    Creative Media Producer | CKI.org

  • 2011
    Video Producer | thedc.com

  • 2010
    Freelance Producer | CitizenA Media

2007 — Master of Arts
Music Composition for Film & Multimedia
New York University

2005 — Bachelor of Music
Music Composition
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Sean lives West of Atlanta with his wife Marian, his mother in law, 2 dogs, 2 indoor cats, a hedgehog, at least 1 outdoor cat, and a soon-to-be newborn baby boy.