By David Lieberman
Univision Communications CEO Randy Falco has promoted Tonia O’Connor from Chief Commercial Officer and President of Content Distribution to a newly created job: Chief Revenue Officer.
And he has given her an important first assignment. She will pick a President of Advertising Sales & Marketing to replace Keith Turner, who said this month that he plans to retire by year end.
Univision says that the CRO position should help the Spanish language broadcaster and digital company to develop “an integrated content monetization strategy and consolidated oversight of all of UCI’s revenue streams.” The company wants to offer advertisers and distributors “turnkey solutions across all platforms and enterprise touch points.”
Falco says that this is “an important shift in the way we are now approaching our business.” By developing a revenue strategy “we will be able to better partner with our clients to create consumer-first, multi-platform solutions and invest in our content, platforms and insights with improved targeting and servicing of our audience.”
He calls O’Connor “a fearless leader with a keen ability to anticipate, influence and adapt to our rapidly changing industry, and she is uniquely qualified to help drive our next phase of growth at a pace that tracks with the convergence of the media and technology worlds.”
The new CRO says that Univision is poised to “provide tremendous opportunities for our clients to leverage the full value of our enterprise.”
Univision faces intensifying competition from Telemundo, owned by Comcast’s NBCUniversal. Meanwhile its owners, mostly private equity firms, are looking for ways to cash out. They’re weighing an IPO. Early this month directors Haim Saban and Jonathan Nelson met with Liberty Media Chairman John Malone and CEO Greg Maffel to gauge their interest in making a big investment.
Before joining Univision, O’Connor helped to lead Gemstar-TV Guide.
Source: Deadline
