FORA.tv Speaker - Ben Relles

Ben is Head of Creative Development at the YouTube Next Lab. In this role he works with some of the most innovative producers in online video to help them build their audience and develop their content and creative programming. Prior to joining YouTube, Ben was Vice President of Programming at online video leader Next New Networks where he led content strategy as the company built viewership to over two billion total views.

Ben also founded and runs the comedy network Barely Political which has been viewed over one billion times since launching in 2007 and is one of YouTube's top 10 most viewed channels of all time. Ben started Barely Political with his series of "Obama Girl" videos which quickly became a worldwide phenomenon and eventually was named by Newsweek as one of the top five memes of the decade. The Barely Political network continued to expand when Ben created a partnership with the Gregory Brothers to launch their Autotune the News series on the network. Ben also co-created the show The Key of Awesome which is currently one of the internet's most popular shows, with over 30 million views per month.