Zixi appoints John Towers as Chief Financial Officer

MUMBAI: Zixi is putting its finances in the fast lane. The live video delivery and workflow orchestration company has appointed John Towers as Chief Financial Officer, bringing more than 20 years of experience across media, entertainment, technology and manufacturing as broadcasters and streaming platforms accelerate their shift from legacy infrastructure to IP.

Towers will lead Zixi’s finance function as the company responds to growing demand from broadcasters, sports leagues and streaming platforms moving live video away from satellite and legacy infrastructure. His career has closely tracked that same industry transition, spanning physical media, digital distribution, OTT and SaaS.

The appointment gives Zixi a finance chief who has worked through several major shifts in how entertainment content is produced, distributed and delivered. Towers has held senior finance and operating roles at Sony, Deluxe and Fabric Data, giving him experience across both established media businesses and technology-led companies.

From SaaS to Sony

Towers joins Zixi from Fabric Data, a SaaS company that provides a single source of truth for metadata across the entertainment industry. He spent three years as CFO at the company, helping it expand its operations and services.

Before joining Fabric Data, Towers spent two years in corporate development at Deluxe. His move to Deluxe followed the sale of Sony’s digital video distribution business to the company, a transaction that Towers oversaw.

That deal also marked another chapter in a career built around media businesses navigating technological change. At Sony, Towers served as COO and President of the digital video distribution division after joining it as CFO in 2012, at a time when the industry was rapidly moving towards digital content distribution and OTT.

His Sony innings began even earlier in physical media. Before taking on digital video distribution, Towers was CFO of the Sony division responsible for manufacturing Blu-ray discs in the US, working on the format’s launch in 2006.

A career built around transitions

Towers’ career in fact started outside media, with finance roles in pharmaceutical manufacturing, including a five-year posting in Paris. The journey from pharmaceutical manufacturing to Blu-ray, digital distribution, OTT and entertainment SaaS has given him experience across businesses at different stages of technological transformation.

That background is particularly relevant to Zixi, whose business sits at another turning point for the media industry. Broadcasters, sports leagues and streaming platforms are increasingly shifting live video workflows from traditional satellite and other legacy systems towards IP-based delivery.

Zixi CEO Marc Aldrich said Towers understands the economics of moving from physical to digital and from legacy infrastructure to IP. He added that Towers’ experience scaling finance and operations at both a global media company and a fast-growing SaaS business would support Zixi’s next phase of growth.

Towers, meanwhile, said the theme of moving businesses from old infrastructure to new has run through his career. He pointed to his experience with Blu-ray in 2006, digital distribution and OTT in 2012, and now Zixi’s work in live video delivery over IP.

Live video enters its IP era

The timing of the appointment comes as the live video ecosystem undergoes its own infrastructure overhaul. Traditional satellite and legacy delivery systems are increasingly being supplemented or replaced by IP-based workflows, particularly as broadcasters, sports organisations and streaming platforms look for more flexible ways to move live content.

For Zixi, that transition is central to its growth opportunity. The company provides live video delivery and workflow orchestration technology aimed at helping media businesses move live content reliably over IP.

Towers’ remit will therefore extend beyond financial stewardship as the company scales around this shift. His previous experience across finance, operations, corporate development and digital media puts him close to several of the same structural changes shaping Zixi’s customer base.

A familiar media transformation, with a new delivery route

There is also a neat symmetry to Towers’ career. He joined Sony when Blu-ray was helping redefine physical media, moved into digital video distribution as OTT gathered pace, worked on the corporate side of the transition at Deluxe, and most recently helped a SaaS business expand its entertainment technology offering.

At Zixi, the next transition is live video moving further into the IP era. As the company targets growing demand from broadcasters, sports leagues and streaming platforms, Towers will be tasked with bringing financial discipline to a business operating at the intersection of media and technology.

For Zixi, the appointment is therefore as much about timing as it is about titles. The company is scaling at a moment when live video delivery is shifting infrastructure, and its new CFO arrives with a career spent navigating precisely those kinds of changes.