Everything a journalist, producer, podcast host, or event organizer needs. Bios in three lengths, talking points, suggested questions, and direct contact. Built to make your job easier and the conversation richer.
RJ Mabanta is a Narrative Strategist and the CEO and Founder of Searchlight Studio, a San Diego-based practice that helps leaders, founders, organizations, and students tell their best, fullest, richest story and develop the story yet to be told. His work operates at the layer underneath branding, strategy, and culture initiatives — where the real story lives, and where the real work begins.
The Searchlight Method moves through three phases — Illuminate, Align, and Activate — beginning by reading the story as it truly exists, building the conditions for the right conversations to take hold, then moving into the engagement and the follow-through that makes change real. Clients range from C-suite leaders navigating organizational transition to founders building from scratch to students standing at the edge of what comes next.
RJ serves on the Executive Board of DOA Academy of the Arts in Sacramento as Learning, Narrative, and Operations Consultant — bringing Searchlight Studio's methodology to bear in building the learning and youth development frameworks that allow world-class arts training to be transformational for every student the institution exists to serve. DOA represents the full integration of everything Searchlight does: narrative clarity, organizational design, and the human development work that makes both sustainable.
He has also launched brands built to thrive in a new socio-technical era, working alongside clients to develop identities, web presences, and positioning strategies that are coherent, distinctive, and alive to the moment.
RJ holds an MFA in Theatre and a Master's in Educational Leadership. Over more than 20 years in education, he led Socratic seminars with Seoul's student elite, designed and launched schools from scratch, and joined San Diego Unified four years ago as a school leader — serving across multiple schools, including the district's newest high school in 30 years in the heart of Logan Heights/Barrio Logan. He is currently a site administrator at Mission Bay High School, a recent recipient of the California Distinguished School designation. Across all of it, he has guided hundreds of students through applications that opened doors no checklist could have predicted.
Each version is written for a different context. The full bio is for producer rundowns, program guides, and event introductions. The short bio is for social copy, segment teases, and chyron context. The one-liner is for lower thirds, podcast intros, and quick attribution.
RJ Mabanta is a Narrative Strategist and the CEO and Founder of Searchlight Studio, a San Diego-based practice that helps leaders, founders, organizations, and students tell their best, fullest, richest story and develop the story yet to be told. He currently serves on the Executive Board of DOA Academy of the Arts in Sacramento as Learning, Narrative, and Operations Consultant, building the learning and youth development frameworks that allow world-class arts training to be transformational for all involved.
RJ holds an MFA in Theatre and a Master's in Educational Leadership. Over more than 20 years in education, he led Socratic seminars with Seoul's student elite, designed and launched schools from scratch, and joined San Diego Unified four years ago as a school leader, serving across multiple schools including the district's newest high school in 30 years in the heart of Logan Heights/Barrio Logan. He is currently a site administrator at Mission Bay High School, a recent recipient of the California Distinguished School designation.
His methodology, the Searchlight Method, moves through three phases: Illuminate, Align, and Activate. Searchlight works at the story layer first, so that everything built on it is built to last.
RJ Mabanta is the CEO and Founder of Searchlight Studio, a narrative strategy practice based in San Diego. He works with leaders, founders, organizations, and students to help them tell their best, fullest, richest story and develop the story yet to be told. He serves on the Executive Board of DOA Academy of the Arts in Sacramento as Learning, Narrative, and Operations Consultant. RJ brings more than 20 years of experience in education, school design, and leadership development, alongside an MFA in Theatre and a Master's in Educational Leadership.
RJ Mabanta — Narrative Strategist, CEO of Searchlight Studio, and Executive Board Member of DOA Academy of the Arts.
He helps leaders, founders, organizations, and students tell their best, fullest, richest story and develop the story yet to be told.
Most organizations don't have a strategy problem. They have a story problem. The narrative they are living inside of hasn't caught up to who they are becoming, or who they are capable of being. Until that story is clear, coherent, and full, no rebrand, no campaign, no strategic plan will hold. Searchlight works at that layer first.
Searchlight works at the story layer across four client groups: organizations navigating change, leaders in transition, founders building something new, and students standing at the edge of what comes next. The work is the same everywhere: helping each of them tell their best, fullest, richest story, and build toward the one not yet told.
At DOA Academy of the Arts, the work is building the internal cultural architecture that makes world-class arts training transformational for every student in the room. Learning frameworks, youth development systems, and relational design that carry the vision forward. This is what Searchlight's methodology looks like at full institutional depth.
More than 20 years in. Hundreds of college essays. Schools designed from scratch. Students who got into places nobody saw coming, not because someone edited their writing, but because someone helped them find the true thing to say. That is the origin of all of this. The story was always the variable.
"Dreams don't fail. Untold stories do."
Each of these questions is designed to open into a strong, specific answer. Any of them will generate a compelling segment.
You call yourself a Narrative Strategist. What does that mean — and why do leaders and organizations need it?
You serve on the Executive Board of DOA Academy of the Arts in Sacramento. What is happening there, and what are you building?
You've spent more than two decades in education, the last four years with San Diego Unified as a school leader. What has that experience built in you that shows up in the work at Searchlight?
What does it look like when someone finally gets their story straight? What changes?
You say "dreams don't fail — untold stories do." What do you mean by that?
All materials are available on request. Contact rj@searchlight.studio with your publication, program, or event name and we will respond within one business day.
High-resolution photography available in multiple formats. Print and digital versions upon request.
Searchlight Studio logo files in full color, reversed, and single-color versions. EPS, PNG, and SVG formats available.
Full, short, and one-liner versions available above. Custom length or focus available on request.
Full keynote and seminar topic descriptions, including audience framing, session length options, and AV requirements.
A one-page methodology brief covering Illuminate, Align, and Activate. Suitable for event programs and press backgrounds.
A complete press kit document available as a formatted PDF. Includes full bio, talking points, and contact information.
For interview requests, speaking inquiries, podcast bookings, or media appearances, reach out directly. Every inquiry is read and responded to personally.
Send an Inquiry