Paramount Skydance has revamped another key tech team as CEO David Ellison’s digital transformation takes shape.
Paramount’s ad product and tech teams are joining forces, becoming the latest units to get a makeover. Earlier this year, Ellison combined streaming engineering groups and reassigned some staffers who’d helped merge the tech platforms of Paramount+ and free streamer Pluto TV.
Ad product and tech employees learned about the new structure and leaders in a late-June memo from Hugh Williams, a former Google tech exec who joined Paramount this spring as an EVP.
Merging the ad product and tech groups will help create “the modern, unified product and technology organization we set out to build,” Williams said in the memo, which was obtained by Business Insider.
Ellison is set on modernizing Paramount, a 114-year-old Hollywood powerhouse that hasn’t been known for its tech prowess. He’s hoping to narrow the gap with Netflix, both by “prioritizing investments in advanced technology” and by buying Warner Bros. Discovery.
Paramount has made strides in streaming tech by adding a short-form video feed and plans to add interactive features, such as a shopping tool and sports stats. The company is also eyeing video podcasts to drive engagement.
Paramount’s rearranged ad product and tech group has five parts, and each unit’s leader will report directly to Williams, the EVP said.
Staffers on these teams should prepare for “movement between the groups soon to align with the new team structure,” Williams added.
Todd Bender, currently Paramount’s EVP of Advertising Platforms, will take on a new role as EVP of Integration, Williams said. Bender will support Williams and product chief Dane Glasgow “in complex integration planning work” with the changes, Williams said in the memo.
Here’s a breakdown of Paramount ad product and tech’s new structure and leadership team:
Product Management (PM)
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Led by four executives:
- Charlie Goodman: SVP, Decisioning & Ad Formats PM
- Matthew Jacobs: Senior Director, Reporting, Measurement, and Attribution PM
- George Powell: VP, Ad Platforms & Systems PM
- Michele Stone: SVP, Revenue Enablement PM
- Description: “Accountable for why we do work and what work we do, organized around the full ‘pitch to pay’ lifecycle of advertising across every screen. This spans how clients and our sales teams plan and transact with us; how we decide, deliver, operate, and shape the ad experience; the shared platforms and infrastructure the organization runs on; and how we measure outcomes and turn delivered value into revenue.”
Engineering
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Led by Rich Orme: EVP, Engineering
- Background: Orme joined Paramount in June after working in tech for close to three decades. He most recently started and ran AI advisory firm Leif Partners and previously worked at tech investment firm Silver Lake.
- Description: “Accountable for how and when we build software. Once the PM team decides what to build, Engineering owns the architecture, design, build, and delivery dates. Almost all of our engineers will report into this new organization.”
Data
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Led by TBD
- Williams said that Paramount plans to hire an EVP of Data to head up its data science and analytics efforts.
- Description: “Accountable for how and when we build our data solutions, spanning analytics and data science. Analytics owns the insights, reporting, dashboards, experimentation, and ensuring our data is relevant, reliable, and reusable. They will answer the hard and interesting data questions about Ads. Data science owns the models and algorithms that power our products. Data partners closely with Engineering and is a key partner across Product Management.”
Advertising Solutions
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Led by Dayna Wasilefski: VP, Advertising Solutions
- Background: Wasilefski is a longtime Paramount executive stepping in for Paul Mahood, the ad sales product and tech SVP who’s leaving the company at the end of July after more than two decades.
- Description: “Owns the significant vendor solutions that run our customer and linear businesses, including our CRM and all Salesforce instances, linear systems, and the technology behind local, sports, and our other non-streaming businesses. We will continue to deliver these with the availability and continuity the business depends on. This team owns the how and the when for customizing and operating those solutions.”
Field CTO
- Led by Travis Scoles: EVP, Field CTO
- Description: “A small, senior, client-facing team focused on direct relationships with our ad sales teams and advertisers. This team will build small, high-value custom solutions, representing our product and technology strategy to clients and partners, and feeding market intelligence back into the organization. Their work is deliberately one-off: anything that becomes durable is handed back to the broader organization to own and prioritize. The team will also represent Ads Product and Tech in client forums and evangelize Paramount as leaders in the Ads space.”
Paramount has a new-look leadership team
Ellison’s Paramount has had plenty of leadership changes this year.
Besides bringing on Williams, the company also landed former Google AI language product exec Barak Turovsky in May as its head of consumer AI. And in March, Paramount hired Danielle Carney from Amazon to oversee its US ad sales team.
Meanwhile, tech chief Phil Wiser left the company in late May. A few months earlier, agency partnerships EVP Chris Simon stepped down, and streaming product and tech chief Vibol Hou also left.
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