{{Short description|American technology executive}} {{Infobox person | name = Marc Frons | birth_place = Brooklyn, New York, U.S. | occupation = Technology executive | citizenship = American | education = Brooklyn College (B.A.) }}
'''Marc Frons''' is an American technology executive and former journalist. He served as chief technology officer of News Corp from 2016 to 2019 and as chief information officer of ''The New York Times'' from 2012 to 2015.<ref name="capitalny">{{Cite web |title=''New York Times'' CIO Marc Frons to leave the company |url=http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2015/05/8568357/emnew-york-timesem-cio-marc-frons-leave-company |access-date=2023-01-25 |website=Capital New York |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160319203802/http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2015/05/8568357/emnew-york-timesem-cio-marc-frons-leave-company |archive-date=2016-03-19}}</ref><ref name="nytco-cio">{{Cite web |title=The New York Times Company Names Marc Frons Chief Information Officer |url=https://investors.nytco.com/news-and-events/press-releases/news-details/2012/The-New-York-Times-Company-Names-Marc-Frons-Chief-Information-Officer/default.aspx |access-date=2025-10-06 |website=investors.nytco.com}}</ref> Before entering the technology field, he held senior editorial positions at ''Newsweek'' and ''Business Week''. In 1995, he co-created SmartMoney.com, one of the first financial news websites.<ref name="xmedialab">{{cite web |url=http://www.xmedialab.com/mentor/marc-frons |title=Marc Frons – X Media Lab |access-date=2011-04-02 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722070627/http://www.xmedialab.com/mentor/marc-frons |archive-date=2011-07-22}}</ref>
== Education and early career == Frons earned a B.A. in psychology from Brooklyn College (City University of New York) in 1977. While an undergraduate, he was a campus correspondent for ''The New York Times''.<ref name="nyt-cto-2006">{{Cite web |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2006_June_5/ai_n16441986/ |title=The New York Times Company Names Marc Frons Chief Technology Officer, Digital Operations |date=2006-06-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070113040531/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2006_June_5/ai_n16441986/ |archive-date=2007-01-13}}</ref> After graduation, he worked as a stringer for ''The Times'' while employed at a newspaper in Rock Springs, Wyoming. He joined ''Newsweek'' in 1979 and held several senior editor positions at ''Business Week'' from 1984 to 1995.<ref name="xmedialab" />
== SmartMoney.com == From 1995 to early 2002, Frons served as editor and chief technology officer of SmartMoney.com, one of the first financial periodical websites. In 1998, the site launched the Map of the Market, a financial data visualization tool designed by Martin M. Wattenberg. The Map used a variant of the "treemap" technique pioneered by Ben Shneiderman, dividing the screen into rectangular tiles representing publicly traded companies. Each tile's area corresponded to a company's market capitalization, and its color indicated the stock price's change since the previous close. The tool introduced an algorithm designed to produce near-square tiles, improving legibility over earlier treemap implementations. Similar algorithms were independently developed around the same time by researchers including Jarke van Wijk.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.bewitched.com/marketmap.html |title=Martin Wattenberg: Map of the Market}}</ref>
The Map of the Market became one of SmartMoney.com's most-visited features and influenced the broader adoption of treemaps for financial data visualization.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://moneyover55.about.com/od/howtoinvest/tp/marketmaps.htm |title=5 Super-Cool Stock Market Maps |access-date=2011-04-02 |archive-date=2011-11-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111107012930/http://moneyover55.about.com/od/howtoinvest/tp/marketmaps.htm |url-status=dead}}</ref>
SmartMoney.com received the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) National Magazine Award for Best Interactive Design in 2001, the Online News Association Award for Best Interactive Design in 2000, and the Web Marketing Association Award for Best Investing Web Site in 1999.<ref name="nyt-cto-2006" />
== Dow Jones and AOL Time Warner == From January 2002 to June 2003, Frons worked at AOL Time Warner, first as vice president and general manager of AOL Personal Finance and then as consulting editor for CNN Money. From 2003 to 2006, he was vice president and chief technology officer of the Consumer Media Group at Dow Jones & Company, overseeing technology for ''The Wall Street Journal'' Online and other consumer websites.<ref name="nytco-cio" />
== ''The New York Times'' == Frons joined ''The New York Times'' in July 2006 as chief technology officer of digital operations, overseeing technology and product development for NYTimes.com and the company's other digital properties.<ref name="nyt-cto-2006" /><ref name="howsoftware">{{Cite web |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110315052523/http://howsoftwareisbuilt.com/2008/01/16/interview-with-marc-frons-cto-new-york-times-digital/ |title=Interview with Marc Frons – CTO – New York Times Digital – Part 1 |date=2008-01-16 |website=How Software Is Built}}</ref> In March 2012, he was promoted to chief information officer, with responsibility for all technology strategy and operations at the company.<ref name="nytco-cio" />
During his tenure, Frons oversaw a transition from the company's proprietary web platform toward open-source software, adopting the LAMP stack and frameworks such as Ruby on Rails for new development. He described the approach as incremental, beginning with lower-traffic sections of the site before expanding to more prominent areas. He also created an internal team called Interactive News Technologies, embedding software engineers in the newsroom to build tools and rapid-development applications for news coverage.<ref name="howsoftware" />
Other initiatives during his time at ''The Times'' included the launch of Times Extra, a beta feature that aggregated headlines and links from third-party news sources and blogs and matched them with lead articles on the NYTimes.com home page,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=105317&p=irol-pressArticle&ID=1232547&highlight= |title=NYTimes.com Announces Times Extra in Beta |website=phx.corporate-ir.net |access-date=22 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081218155520/http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=105317&p=irol-pressArticle&ID=1232547&highlight= |archive-date=18 December 2008 |url-status=dead}}</ref> the implementation of the newspaper's digital paywall, and a content recommendation engine.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/02/you-are-what-you-read-nyt-cto-marc-frons-on-the-papers-new-article-recommendation-engine/ |title="You are what you read": NYT CTO Marc Frons on the paper's new article recommendation engine |website=Nieman Lab}}</ref>
In 2014, Frons led the adoption of continuous delivery across the company's technology teams, working with consultancy ThoughtWorks. The initiative paused roughly half of active development projects during a three-month retraining and automation period. According to Frons, the results included a reduction in production errors by more than half and faster release cycles, with one team reducing its release time from seven days to 35 minutes.<ref name="cd-article">{{Cite web |url=https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2015/4/ny-times-it-capitalizes-continuous-delivery-move-faster |title=NY Times IT capitalizes on continuous delivery to move faster |first=Marc |last=Frons |date=2015-04-14 |website=The Enterprisers Project}}</ref> He also led a shift toward mobile-first development, reorganizing resources as mobile traffic grew from 30 percent of the total digital audience in 2013 to over 50 percent in 2014.<ref name="mobile-article">{{Cite web |url=https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2015/4/what-new-york-times-cio-doing-make-newspaper-mobile-first-company |title=What the New York Times CIO is doing to make the newspaper a mobile-first company |first=Marc |last=Frons |date=2015-04-07 |website=The Enterprisers Project}}</ref>
Frons left ''The New York Times'' in mid-2015.<ref name="capitalny" />
== News Corp == Frons joined News Corp in 2015 as senior vice president, global head of mobile platform, and deputy head of technology. He was named interim chief technology officer in October 2016 after Paul Cheesbrough left to become CTO of 21st Century Fox, and was formally appointed to the role in May 2017.<ref name="cd-article" /><ref name="mobile-article" /> He served until 2019.<ref name="ehs-2026">{{Cite news |last=Walsh |first=Christopher |date=2026-04-16 |title=Toward Better Flight Tracking |url=https://www.easthamptonstar.com/government/2026416/toward-better-flight-tracking |work=The East Hampton Star}}</ref>
== Community involvement == Frons is a member of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee in East Hampton, New York, where he has been involved in efforts to address aircraft noise from East Hampton Airport. In 2025–2026, he developed JPXWatch.org, a public data platform that tracks flights to and from the airport using data from FlightAware. The site maps airport operations by aircraft type, altitude, time of day, and seasonal pattern, and includes a feature allowing users to enter an address and view a personalized estimate of flight activity and noise exposure for that property. The noise estimates are modeled computationally based on terrain, altitude, and aircraft type, as the airport does not have physical noise-monitoring stations.<ref name="ehs-2026" />
In January 2026, the Wainscott committee endorsed a plan presented by Frons identifying steps the town could take to impose operational restrictions at the airport while avoiding procedural issues that had blocked earlier efforts. Frons demonstrated the platform to East Hampton Airport officials and town leaders in March 2026. Members of the East Hampton Aviation Association subsequently engaged with Frons to review the platform's data sources and accuracy.<ref name="ehs-2026" />
== Personal life == Frons lives in Wainscott, New York, with his wife, psychotherapist Merry Frons. He has two daughters. He is a cousin of Brian Frons, former president of ABC Daytime.
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == * {{Cite web |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110309100755/http://www.levininstitute.org/mediainnovation.cfm |title=Innovation in Media: When Global Meets Digital |website=The Levin Institute}} — panel discussion featuring Frons alongside representatives from Google, McKinsey, and The Huffington Post (April 2009) * {{Cite web |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110311160859/http://www.media2010.com.au/?page_id=924 |title=Marc Frons: Print to digital – the future |website=Media 2010}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frons, Marc}} Category:Businesspeople from Brooklyn Category:American chief technology officers Category:Brooklyn College alumni Category:Living people Category:Chief information officers Category:Year of birth missing (living people)