Paramount Skydance names leadership team for planned Warner Bros deal

MUMBAI: The Hollywood leadership deck is getting a major rewrite, with Paramount Skydance putting names and titles to the team that could steer its expanded media empire. Paramount Skydance has unveiled the planned leadership structure for the company it intends to create following the anticipated completion of its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The new business, which will be named Skydance, will bring together executives from Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery and Skydance across film, television, streaming, sports and news.

David Ellison will serve as Chairman and CEO, while Ynon Kreiz will become Co-CEO. Andy Gordon, President of Skydance, will work alongside the two executives on strategic priorities as the company prepares to integrate the businesses.

Ellison will oversee the company’s long-term strategy, creative direction, talent relationships, strategic partnerships, technology and capital allocation. Kreiz, meanwhile, will take responsibility for day-to-day management and integration of the combined operation.

The proposed structure reflects an attempt to split the top-level responsibilities between creative and long-term strategic direction and the considerable operational task of bringing two major media businesses together. Gordon will support Ellison and Kreiz on the strategic priorities that emerge from the integration.

The corporate leadership team will include executives with responsibility for finance, legal affairs, product, marketing and communications. Dennis Cinelli will serve as Chief Financial Officer, while Makan Delrahim will become Chief Legal Officer and President of Global Corporate Affairs.

Dane Glasgow has been named Chief Product Officer, with Rebecca Mall taking the role of Chief Marketing Officer and Melissa Zukerman becoming Chief Communications Officer. Glasgow brings technology experience from product leadership roles at Facebook, Google, eBay and Microsoft.

Technology is being positioned as a central part of the planned company’s strategy rather than simply a back-office function. Glasgow will oversee the long-term product vision and technical strategy, covering digital platforms, immersive storytelling, advertising and AI-powered capabilities.

Kreiz has said the ambition is to build a technologically capable media company that can use a modern technology platform to improve consumer experiences, change how employees work and generate operating efficiencies. The wider strategy will also draw on the combined company’s scale, content assets and global reach as the media industry continues to shift towards streaming, digital platforms and new forms of content discovery.

Casey Bloys will serve as Co-Chair and Chief Content Officer of Skydance Direct-to-Consumer. He will oversee HBO Max and Paramount+ original programming, as well as the broader strategy and performance of the streaming businesses.

George Cheeks will co-lead Skydance TV, which is expected to bring together Warner Bros. Television Studios, CBS Studios and Paramount Television Studios. His remit will also cover CBS, local television stations, sports and more than 50 cable networks.

The structure puts a wide range of traditional television and streaming assets under a connected leadership framework. It also brings together businesses with different histories and operating models as the planned Skydance seeks to compete across both linear and digital viewing environments.

JB Perrette will serve as Co-Chair and Chief Business Officer of both the DTC and TV businesses. His responsibilities will include global distribution, advertising sales, content sales, direct-to-consumer strategy, marketing and business operations.

The motion picture business will also have a dual leadership model. Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein will jointly lead the Skydance Motion Picture Group, while James Gunn and Peter Safran will jointly oversee DC Studios.

The arrangement gives the film business dedicated leadership while keeping DC Studios under its own creative structure. The move is significant given the scale of the combined company’s film libraries, franchises and production operations.

The wider portfolio is expected to bring together some of the most recognisable names and properties across Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, creating a substantially larger content operation under the planned Skydance umbrella.

News will retain a distinct leadership structure within the planned company. Mark Thompson will serve as Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of CNN Worldwide, while Bari Weiss will become Editor-in-Chief of CBS News.

Thompson previously led The New York Times Company as President and CEO and served as Director General of the BBC. Weiss is Editor-in-Chief of The Free Press, which Skydance acquired in 2025, and currently leads CBS News.

The separate news leadership structure comes as the planned company brings together CNN and CBS News, two major news operations with distinct editorial identities. A full Executive Leadership Team is expected to be announced after the transaction closes.

The proposed company will combine a broad collection of entertainment, television, streaming, sports and news assets. Its stated portfolio will include Paramount, Warner Bros., HBO, Paramount+, Pluto TV, CBS, CNN, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, MTV, Food Network, BET, HGTV and Comedy Central.

That breadth is central to the rationale behind the planned combination. Rather than operating as a collection of individual entertainment properties, the company intends to use its scale, content libraries and distribution networks across multiple formats and markets.

The leadership structure reflects that ambition, with separate executives overseeing content, technology, distribution, advertising, news, film and streaming while Ellison and Kreiz sit at the top of the organisation.

The planned transaction has yet to reach completion, meaning the structure is a blueprint for the company that Paramount Skydance expects to create following the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The final Executive Leadership Team is also still to be announced after the deal closes.

For now, the message from the proposed structure is clear: the new Skydance is being designed as a media business where Hollywood creativity, streaming scale and technology sit at the same table. Ellison described the ambition as building a “next-generation global media company” focused on creative excellence and innovation, setting the tone for what could become one of the industry’s most closely watched post-merger leadership experiments.