Paramount Skydance has poached a top ad exec from Amazon to lead its US ad sales efforts.
Danielle Carney spent more than four years at Amazon, most recently as head of video and live sports sales, helping the ecommerce giant expand its live sports business with its 2021 exclusive NFL deal. Before Amazon, she spent more than a decade at Disney, most of it in ad sales for ESPN.
Jay Askinasi, Paramount’s chief revenue officer, cited Carney’s experience in entertainment, sports, and technology in her hire.
“As we accelerate toward a streaming-centric future, Danielle’s deep expertise across entertainment, sports and technology is invaluable,” Askinasi wrote in a memo that was obtained by Business Insider. “She will play a critical role in connecting our most valuable assets with brand marketers and agency partners, helping deliver a seamless, client-first experience across the Paramount ecosystem.
Askinasi also named Tribeca Enterprises’ Chris Brady as EVP of Paramount Media Labs, a new role he said was aimed at developing brand integrations and other partnerships.
It’s the latest shake-up to Paramount’s ads leadership under Askinasi, who was appointed in October. Chris Simon, a Paramount EVP of agency partnerships, stepped down in February, while fellow Paramount vet John Halley stepped down in late 2025 as advertising president.
Paramount is fresh off winning the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery after a drawn-out fight with Netflix.
Here’s the full memo from Paramount’s revenue chief:
- Unifying our HoldCo partnerships, programmatic and advanced advertising sales teams into a single organization under Karen Phillips’ leadership to better serve our agency partners;
- Investing further in programmatic sales capabilities and enablement, recognizing the growing importance of data-driven and automated buying across the marketplace;
- Launching the Global Ad Marketing & Intelligence group, a centralized strategic go-to-market function led by Lydia Daly;
- Aligning our Creative+ sales team within Karim Mawji’s Global Client Partnership organization to reinforce a more client-centric model;
- Driving strong sales and engagement through the successful launch of UFC on Paramount+, alongside a record-setting NFL season, further establishing sports as a cornerstone of our sales strategy.
Read the original article on Business Insider
The post Paramount just nabbed 2 big hires as it looks to jump-start its streaming ads business appeared first on Business Insider.
