Paramount Announces Skydance Leadership After Merger

Paramount Skydance Chairman and CEO David Ellison and Co-CEO Ynon Kreiz announced the CEO leadership team on Monday. The team will lead the merged company, which will be renamed Skydance, after Paramount's anticipated acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery closes. Members come from both sides and report directly to the two CEOs. This remains a projected list until the deal is completed.

Ellison oversees long-term strategy, creative direction, talent, partnerships, technology, and capital allocation, and serves as Chairman. Kreiz manages daily operations and integration. Skydance President Andy Gordon works with both to advance business priorities, and all three will join the board. Gordon was a partner at RedBird Capital and spent 35 years at Goldman Sachs, involved in orchestrating Skydance's acquisition of Paramount in 2025 and this acquisition in 2026.

The film division is co-led by Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, covering Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. James Gunn and Peter Safran continue to co-lead DC Studios. Streaming content is overseen by Casey Bloys, including HBO Max and Paramount+ originals. Television is managed by George Cheeks, overseeing Warner, CBS, and Paramount's three television studios, CBS Television Network, 27 local stations, and over fifty cable brands including HGTV, Food Network, TBS, TNT, Discovery, BET, Comedy Central, MTV, and Nickelodeon.

News is grouped separately. Mark Thompson serves as CNN's Global Chairman and Editor-in-Chief. Bari Weiss is the Editor-in-Chief of CBS News and also the Editor-in-Chief of The Free Press, which will be acquired by Skydance in 2025. Finance continues to be led by Dennis Cinelli, who previously served as CFO at Scale AI, overseeing a sevenfold revenue growth and Meta's $14 billion strategic investment. Legal and global corporate affairs are managed by former Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Makan Delrahim. Product is overseen by Dane Glasgow, who managed over 3 billion monthly active products at Facebook.

Ellison stated that the merged company aims to become a creative, scalable, technologically advanced, and imaginative entertainment company. He founded Skydance Media in 2010, with films grossing nearly $10 billion globally, including 2022's Top Gun: Maverick. Kreiz's goal is to turn Skydance into a Hollywood content engine, accelerating the direct-to-consumer platform post-integration and optimizing the still highly profitable linear television. During his tenure at Mattel, he drove the 2023 Barbie film, which became Warner's highest-grossing film ever.

The complete executive leadership team will be announced after the closing. JB Perrette will serve as Co-Chairman and Chief Commercial Officer for both television and streaming, having previously expanded HBO Max to over 130 markets and driven a $4 billion profitability turnaround. These titles will not take effect until the closing is completed.

This is a power distribution before the closing, not a new transaction. The buyer aims to consolidate the film library, streaming, and cable networks under the same management at Paramount, while the seller is the Warner Bros. Discovery assets awaiting closing and the retained content executives. The event is driven by the anticipated closing of the acquisition. Capital allocation is concentrated in Ellison's creative and capital, while daily integration authority lies with Kreiz. Beneficiaries include existing content lines like DC, HBO, and CBS, while over fifty cable brands and the two unmerged streaming backends face pressure.

Source: Public Information