Spotlight on Sean Graber

Chief Digital Officer, EWTN

At the time of this conversation, Sean Graber was almost a year into his placement at EWTN (June 2025). Coming from a secular background, it was incredible to hear about Sean’s experience transitioning to a Catholic apostolate and learn how his expertise informed his new role serving the Church! We hope you enjoy this conversation.

MA: As a leader coming from a private sector background, how has the transition to EWTN been for you?

SG: First and foremost it’s been a tremendous grace. Joining EWTN and the story of how I got here can only be explained by the Holy Spirit.

I was so encouraged to learn about Mission Advantage and discover that, wow, there are jobs out there that would allow me to combine my professional experience and my faith life and make an impact on an organization.

MA: Can you share more about your new role? What is it that you do at EWTN?

SG: My principal responsibility is driving what we call “EWTN Next”, which is basically taking this organization – which is the largest religious media company in the world, reaching millions of people—and translating our success in linear media (radio and television) to have the same impact in the digital world. What we’re doing with EWTN Next is nothing short of a wholesale reinvention of how we market and how we reach audiences. Think video podcast, streaming platform (EWTN+), content creation, and more.

MA: Before EWTN, you were working for huge tech companies. I love how you’ve taken that expertise and brought it all into the Church. What has this experience been like, going from an intense secular, corporate environment, to a Catholic apostolate?

SG: I love this question! The pace at EWTN is definitely slower in the sense that people take time for the things that matter personally to us. Here, there is space and openness to go to Mass or confession, to pray in meetings, or to address family obligations. There is an allowance for spiritual life at work.

But in another sense, there is an intensity here because our team cares so much about EWTN’s mission and desire the company’s success. And ultimately, we are passionate about our mission of proclaiming the truth in the culture. So there’s a powerful dual-reality to the experience here.

One of Mother Angelica’s greatest charisms was trusting in divine providence. This lives on in how we do business here. Of course, it’s the digital age so we have more data than you can imagine! But sometimes, we need to trust the Holy Spirit even if it doesn’t seem to perfectly match the data.

Mother famously said, “we don’t do things for ratings. We do things for the salvation of souls.” So if what we do saves one soul, then we believe it was worth doing. Part of our job is discerning how to balance the data and the movement of the Spirit.

MA: That’s a powerful perspective, and I’ve heard similar sentiments before. While I think it’s a beautiful idea, from a business perspective, how do you balance the mission of saving souls with the practical demands of a company?

SG: Well, I’m part of the change that’s bringing more data and analytics. So I see your point! At the end of the day, I believe it requires a great deal of prudence. I don’t think there’s an easy formula for this. I think it’s exercising prudence and prayer, and striving to follow God’s will. That’s the beauty of having a team that is pursuing truth and aiming to meld all these aspects together! Our work is a team sport, so we need insights from folks of all backgrounds and different work experience. I can bring my secular, corporate knowledge to the table. Others have a long experience of working for EWTN. With this, comes a certain sensibility that marries our mission with the understanding of data analysis. 

MA: Ten months ago, EWTN Next was just an idea. What is it today?

SG: We’ve made a tremendous amount of progress. But right now, a lot of the progress is under the hood. Much of what we’re working on is not outwardly visible, but we’re laying the groundwork to pave the way for growth! 

We’ve reoriented our approach to product-development and how we build technology, and taken the time to train our team along the way. We’ve honed in on our market research and strategy as we come to understand our audience more thoroughly. 

Our big product development right now is something called EWTN+. This is going to be our new cross-platform, video-on-demand experience. This will be a staged roll out over the next year or so and eventually will be available everywhere! We’re signing deals with tremendously talent content creators as we create a place for big names and voices in the Church to share their content, and an opportunity to bring new voices into the conversation.

Historically, many Catholics might consider EWTN to be a platform for older people. And maybe that’s been true. But we’ve worked hard to curate content that’s relatable to people in all walks of life and stages of their faith journey. In the next year, I think people will really begin to see the massive transformation of EWTN. It’s so exciting!

MA: What does this look like in 3-5 years? How do you hope Catholics encounter this content in the days ahead?

SG: Our mission is to proclaim the truth of the Catholic faith as proclaimed by the Magisterium of the Church. That’s not changing! EWTN is evangelical, catechetical, and entertaining. 

So in 3-5 years, I expect that we’ll be checking those boxes as we strive to save souls through media! I think we’ll build on the success that we’ve had in the digital world, distributing content through modern and beautiful tech to all corners of the Earth.

The content that we’re building now is aimed to rival places like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. We’re producing extremely high quality content for our consumers, and I am so excited to see what the Spirit does with it.