Joan O'C. Hamilton

   Joan O’C. Hamilton is an award-winning magazine journalist and writer who specializes in helping high-profile executives, academics, political candidates, and others develop books and other branded content.   A former Business Week bureau chief, correspondent, and columnist, Joan has written and reported a long list of cover stories on technology, science, medicine, design, and social trends.  Her strength is in making complex and even technical subject matter both accessible to a broad audience and interesting to read.

Joan spent much of her career at Business Week in the Silicon Valley bureau, joining as a correspondent in 1983 and serving two tours as bureau chief. As a correspondent, Joan was one of the nation’s best-known journalists in the burgeoning field of biotechnology. From 2000-2003, she wrote Business Week’s Digital Lifestyle column, an often-satirical look at life in the high-tech fast lane.  In addition, Joan has always maintained an active freelance career and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Town & Country, Wired, The San Jose Mercury News, Technology Review, Via, Stanford Medicine, Stanford Lawyer, and California Lawyer. Joan has been a contributing editor at Stanford Magazine for more than 20 years.

   More recently, Joan has focused on working with high-profile, private clients as a writer and advisor on web content, including as the ghost writer on a New York Times best-seller (this relationship is confidential by agreement).  Joan’s other book clients include:

1. •   Meg Whitman, former president and CEO of eBay.  The Power of Many;  Values for Success in Business and in Life.  Crown.  Pub. date 1/26/10.
   

2. •   San Francisco District Attorney Kamala D. Harris.  Smart on Crime. Chronicle Books. Pub.  date:  10/09.
   

•Stanford University, A Gift To Stanford; A Gift to the World, a book on the contributions of Helen and Peter Bing to Stanford. Privately published, 2008.

•The Stanford Center on Longevity; Helped the new center develop web content, marketing documents, background materials, and other content. 2008.

•Farzad and Rhonda Dibachi (founders of Niku Corp), Just Add Management; McGraw-Hill.  2003

•In addition to these projects, Joan has consulted with numerous executives and academics on book projects, in some cases writing proposals and in others turning manuscripts into other media products such as white papers and blog content.

Joan is a winner of the Mental Health Media Award from the National Mental Health Association, the American Institute of Biological Sciences Media Award, and she was a member of a team at Business Week that won a Deadline Club award for the special report:  “Biotech Century.” She holds undergraduate degrees in political science and journalism from Stanford University, where she was editor of The Stanford Daily.  She lives in Menlo Park, California with her husband and two daughters.