Original Viacom Inc. Press Release via
Business Wire:
Viacom Boosts Its Data Strategy Team with Three Significant Executive Hires
Key Staff Additions Will Expand the Company's Industry-Leading Advanced Data Solutions
August 05, 2015 09:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time
NEW YORK--(
BUSINESS WIRE)--Viacom (NASDAQ: VIAB, VIA) today announced the addition of three executives with expertise in developing, marketing, and monetizing data products, boosting the company's industry-leading advanced analytic and marketing solutions.
Joining Viacom are Bryson Gordon as Senior Vice President of Data Strategy and Viacom Vantage; Gabe Bevilacqua as Vice President of Product Management for Viacom Vantage; and, Kodi Foster as Vice President of Data Strategy. Bevilacqua and Foster report to Gordon, who will manage the team under the leadership of Kern Schireson, Viacom Executive Vice President of Data Strategy and Consumer Intelligence.
Gordon and his team will be responsible for the development of innovative and game-changing data products for Viacom, which has taken an industry-leading role in introducing new marketing programs that precisely target consumers. They will build upon the success of advertising tools such as Viacom Vantage, which enters its second year as a market leader in advanced predictive targeting, analytics and custom data implementations for agencies and advertisers. This new technical and product expertise significantly accelerates Viacom's already robust data capabilities and product portfolio to more fully monetize the continued engagement around the company's programming and brands.
"Data Strategy plays a key role in Viacom's ecosystem because it marries world-class creativity with advanced analytics," said Schireson. "Bringing on Bryson, Gabe, and Kodi is a big step forward and reinforces our dedication to intelligent data solutions that benefit Viacom and our brand partners."
Bryson Gordon
Gordon spent more than a decade at Microsoft leading consumer marketing, product management, and business incubation teams across Windows, Xbox, Office, Microsoft Store, and most recently, Surface. Within the Surface business, he created an Audience Marketing discipline that defined high-value influencer-segments, establishing data-driven pathways to fan cultivation, while developing techniques to directly connect first-party quantitative research into programmatic advertising engines. Under his leadership, the Surface business grew to over $1B in fourth quarter revenue. Prior to Microsoft, Gordon led Consumer Product Management at McAfee Security, helping develop and market the company's direct-to-customer subscription services. He is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario in Canada and Cambridge University in the UK.
Gabe Bevilacqua
Bevilacqua has over a decade of experience in data-driven marketing technology. He was most recently COO at the company he co-founded, Rallyverse, a content marketing platform that powers social media and content campaigns for Fortune 500 clients. Prior to that, he spent six years at Microsoft in their digital advertising platform, most recently as Director of the Advertiser Tools Business Group for the Atlas Advertiser Suite. Bevilacqua also held positions as Global Brand Manager for Guinness World Records, and held business development roles at Urbanfetch and Cductive. He is a graduate of Princeton and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Kodi Foster
Foster served as the Head of Brand Initiatives at Outbrain, where he led strategic account solutions and partnerships with Fortune 100 brands. In that role, he developed content marketing solutions and established the paid recommendations business for brands, helping to grow Outbrain into the largest content discovery platform in the world. Before joining the Outbrain team, he was the Vice President of Business Development at Sahara Media Holdings, a publicly traded investment company specializing in digital media. He is a graduate of Cornell University.
About Viacom
Viacom is home to premier global media brands that create compelling television programs, motion pictures, short-form video, apps, games, consumer products, social media and other entertainment content for audiences in more than 165 countries and territories. Viacom's media networks, including Nickelodeon, CMT, Nick Jr., TeenNick, Nicktoons, TV Land, Nick at Nite, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, SPIKE, Logo, BET, CENTRIC, Channel 5 (UK), Tr3s, Paramount Channel and VIVA, reach a cumulative 3.2 billion television subscribers worldwide. Paramount Pictures is a major global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment.
For more information about Viacom and its businesses, visit
www.viacom.com. Keep up with Viacom news by following Viacom's blog at
blog.viacom.com and Twitter feed at
www.twitter.com/Viacom.
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