Latest news with #DavidEllison
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Skydance-Paramount Unveils Senior Leadership Team Across TV, Film & Streaming
Skydance Media on Wednesday confirmed its senior leadership team ahead of its pending merger with Paramount Global. The company has unveiled 10 executives who will form the top table under the executive leadership team that was revealed Monday, led by David Ellison, who will become CEO and chairman of Paramount once the deal closes Thursday. More from Deadline Revived Paramount TV Studios To Be Led By Matt Thunell; Will Absorb Taylor Sheridan Home MTVE, Showtime & Skydance TV; Keith Cox Staying On Jane Wiseman & Efrain Miron Poised To Join Cindy Holland At Paramount's DTC Unit – The Dish Mike Ireland Exiting Role As Head Of Motion Picture Group At Paramount The executives are Don Granger, President, Motion Picture Group; Kevin MacLellan, President, International and Global Content Distribution; Rebecca Mall, President, Cross Company Initiatives, Franchise, and Corporate Marketing; Matt Thunell, President, Paramount Television Studios; Kevin Creighton, EVP, Corporate Finance & Investor Relations; Tony Driscoll, EVP, Head of Corporate Strategy & Development; Efrain Miron, EVP, Head of Content Strategy & Licensing, DTC; Jose Turkienicz, EVP, Head of Global Operations; Laura Watson, EVP, Corporate and Executive Communications; and Jane Wiseman, EVP, Head of Originals, DTC. This comes after the new Paramount structured the company into three business segments — Studios, Direct-to-Consumer and TV Media — with Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein overseeing studios as Co-Chairs of Paramount Pictures (with Goldberg as Chair of Paramount Television), George Cheeks as Chair of TV Media, and Cindy Holland as Chair of Direct-to-Consumer. 'These new members of the senior management team bring fresh perspectives shaped by years of industry experience, adding meaningful depth, unrelenting passion, and a shared commitment to building a next-generation media company,' Ellison said today 'At a time of incredible opportunity for Paramount and our industry, I'm confident these forward-minded leaders will propel our vision and reignite a shared sense of purpose and ambition throughout our teams.' Deadline already told you that Wiseman and Miron would join Holland's team, Granger would lead film under Goldberg and Wiseman, and Thunell would lead the revamped Paramount TV Studios. MacLellan returns to the TV business to oversee the company's international strategy. Paramount owns British broadcaster Channel 5 and Australian broadcaster Network 10, which he will oversee as well as the licensing of film and TV content to global networks. He was formerly Chairman of Global Distribution and International Media at NBCUniversal. Mall was previously Chief Marketing Officer at Skydance Media and she will oversee marketing campaigns and manage its franchises. Creighton, who previously worked at ticketing company StubHub and Netflix, will oversee Corporate Finance, Treasury and Investor Relations for Paramount. Driscoll will lead corporate strategy, corporate development, transformation and strategic alliances, having previously held executive roles at Epic Games (where he worked on Fortnite), Warner Bros., AT&T and Disney. Turkienicz will oversee global business services, procurement, real estate and facilities, security, aviation, and enterprise support services. He joins from UPS. Watson, previously Deputy Chief Communications Officer at Warner Bros. Discovery, will work with Paramount's Chief Communications Officer Melissa Zukerman to lead the company's communications strategy, with a focus on executive, financial, and internal communications. Best of Deadline 'Wednesday' Season 2 Soundtrack: All The Songs In Part 1 'The Buccaneers' Season 2 Soundtrack: From Griff To Sabrina Carpenter 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Emmys, Oscars, Grammys & More Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
RedBird Capital's $2 billion power play: Meet Gerry Cardinale, the private equity kingmaker behind the Paramount–Skydance deal
On Thursday, the closing of the $8.4 billion merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media ushered in a new era for the iconic entertainment company, and a new Hollywood mogul: David Ellison, CEO of Paramount, a Skydance Corporation. Ellison, a film producer and the founder of Skysance, is rapidly becoming a household name amid intense media coverage of the biggest deal in entertainment and media this year. His father and partner in the deal, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, has long been famous as one of the richest men in the world. Less well known, however, is the other guy behind the deal: Gerry Cardinale of the private equity firm RedBird Capital. With RedBird's $2 billion stake in Skydance's $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global, Cardinale has been a key player in the 19 months of machinations ahead of the transfer of power from Shari Redstone to the Ellisons. Ahead of the closing of the deal, Paramount was already showing signs of private equity-style fiscal austerity. Under Redstone, the company pushed through sweeping layoffs and parted ways with multiple top-paid executives—and Ellison has promised to find another $2 billion in cost savings. Paramount also cut loose The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and settled a $16 million lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump over a 60 Minutes interview. After Skydance agreed to 'ensure that the new company's programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum,' and to 'root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media,' Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr approved the deal on July 24. The moves garnered criticism from those who saw the Trump settlement as an indirect bribe and the cancellation of Colbert, a frequent critic of Trump, as an effort to curry favor with the president. Now, with the deal done, Cardinale's influence is clearly delineated: RedBird holds 22.5% of Paramount's voting rights while David Ellison will hold 50% of voting rights and his father will hold the remaining 27.5%. Several alums of the firm are in the C-suite: Running the company alongside Ellison are two Cardinale lieutenants—Jeff Shell as President and Andy Gordon as COO. Cardinale did not respond to requests for comment for this story. An 'IP monetization engine' comes to Hollywood Cardinale's rise to Hollywood kingmaker marks a watershed moment for the entertainment industry. Private equity firms have been making moves in Hollywood for some time, but Redbird's stake in the Paramount deal is by far the largest to date. Unlike the moguls, creatives, and dynasties who traditionally ruled the studios, Cardinale is an outsider—a product of Wall Street, not Paramount's backlot culture. But it's a trait he sees as an asset. 'I really think being from outside that ecosystem—or at least one foot in, one foot out—is a huge competitive advantage,' he told Fortune's Paolo Confino in 2024. 'I don't get caught up in the headlines. I don't get caught up in the emotionalism. I'm not running to go to the Oscars.' Cardinale—a former Rhodes scholar and the kind of finance wonk who uses terms like 'technological disintermediation'—suggests that it will take real discipline to position the iconic but battered studio for tech-forward survival in a ruthless streaming era. This same unforgiving strategic discipline made RedBird formidable in sports and entertainment. 'We're an IP monetization engine,' Cardinale told Fortune last year. 'That's what we do.' At Paramount, it will likely mean leveraging the legendary Hollywood studio's trove of movies, shows, and other IP, while cutting costs and improving efficiency. 'We should be able to make movies for half the cost,' Cardinale told Puck. 'We should be able to make original content for half the cost.' While Paramount is Cardinale's highest-profile investment, it's by no means the dealmaker's public debut. The 58-year-old investor has been betting big for nearly three decades, having cut his teeth at Goldman Sachs before founding RedBird (a play on his last name) in 2014. The firm now has $12 billion in assets under management and six global offices. Despite having built a multibillion-dollar private equity empire, Cardinale previously told Fortune he rejects the term 'mogul,' describing himself simply as an investor. The finance world wasn't always appealing to Cardinale, he told Bloomberg's The Deal in 2024: 'I wasn't one of these Wharton kids who knew I wanted to go to Wall Street from day one,' he said. Cardinale grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and attended Harvard University, where he rowed heavyweight crew and graduated magna cum laude before studying politics and political theory at Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. It was while working at a Tokyo think tank that Cardinale began considering a career in finance, joining Goldman as an analyst in 1992 at the firm's Hong Kong and Singapore offices, and later moving to New York. In 2001, Cardinale helped persuade Yankees owner George Steinbrenner to launch the YES regional sports network, with Goldman sinking a $335 million private equity investment into the project. Cardinale saw the opportunity for the Yankees to monetize their own content—games, analysis, and original programming—rather than simply selling broadcast rights to local cable. The risky YES deal netted hundreds of millions in annual cash flow and fast-tracked Cardinale's promotion to partner at Goldman in 2004. Eight years later, Goldman and Providence Equity sold a 49% stake in YES to News Corp at a valuation exceeding $3 billion—up from a starting valuation around $850 million in 2001. Cardinale's success with the Yankees helped prove what was to become a foundational thesis for his investment strategy empire: While platforms, formats, and technologies shift, the audience attachment to compelling IP (a storied sports team, a blockbuster movie franchise, a beloved character) persists. This durability enables monetization through endless new business models as the landscape evolves. 'I'm able to look at the sports industry, and the media and entertainment industry, as ecosystems,' Cardinale explained to Fortune in 2024, speaking of his ownership of the Italian soccer team AC Milan and his efforts to replace the team's crumbling century-old stadium with a brand-new Yankee Stadium-like arena. 'And then what I do is I look for dislocations. I look for areas where there's a need for improvement, evolution, and professionalization.' Cardinale left Goldman in 2013 and founded RedBird the following year with $665 million he raised for an inaugural fund. Cardinale's strategy at RedBird has consistently followed his formula: Acquire premium intellectual property, streamline costs, then monetize it. This priority is reflected in the firm's portfolio. As well as AC Milan, with its millions of global fans, Redbird purchased an 11% stake in Fenway Sports Group, the holding company that owns the Boston Red Sox, English soccer team Liverpool FC, and the regional sports channel New England Sports Network. Then, with the help of FSG, RedBird invested in NBA star LeBron James's entertainment company SpringHill, in a $725 million deal. Outside of sports, RedBird backed Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's film production company, Artists Equity, and acquired the production company behind the critically acclaimed British television show Fleabag and the reality game show Squid Game: The Challenge. In 2024, the firm entered the news game, agreeing to purchase the U.K. publications the Telegraph and the Spectator alongside co-investors from the United Arab Emirates, in a deal shepherded by former CNN head Jeff Zucker. Despite objections from some in the UK government about foreign influence over institutions of British media, in May, the Telegraph acquisition went through in a deal valued at upwards of $640 million. Cardinale has also long backed David Ellison's vision for Skydance. In 2020, RedBird became the second largest investor in Ellison's company, leading a $275 million capital raise. Cardinale helped raise an additional $400 million for Skydance in 2022. For Cardinale, content is king Cardinale's friend Bob Iger, the Disney CEO, sees Cardinale as a natural when it comes to the business of culture. 'He gets the fact that great IP is the equivalent of beachfront property,' Iger told Fortune last year. 'He knows that the world is in need of entertainment, and regardless of the means in which they get it, or how it's monetized, there's real value to it, and it's long-term.' So far, this ethos has paid off for Cardinale. But the road ahead for Paramount is full of formidable challenges: a declining linear TV sector, billions in debt, brutal streaming wars, and a workforce still reeling from multiple layoffs—and likely more to come with the additional $2 billion in cuts pledged by Ellison. The new leadership's promise of 'transformation' now rests on whether they can drive efficiency without eviscerating the creative core. To do so, Paramount, a Skydance Corporation, will likely bank on Cardinale's IP-optimizing strategy. In Cardinale's model, every acquisition is meant to outlast market cycles and fads, thriving on operational rigor and adaptable 'platform value' that eclipses the old trophy asset mentality. And Paramount, with its more than 100 years of lore, upwards of 1,200 film titles, and the distribution rights to thousands of other films, is chock full of platform value. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
RedBird Capital's $2 billion power play: Meet Gerry Cardinale, the private equity kingmaker behind the Paramount–Skydance deal
On Thursday, the closing of the $8.4 billion merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media ushered in a new era for the iconic entertainment company, and a new Hollywood mogul: David Ellison, CEO of Paramount, a Skydance Corporation. Ellison, a film producer and the founder of Skysance, is rapidly becoming a household name amid intense media coverage of the biggest deal in entertainment and media this year. His father and partner in the deal, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, has long been famous as one of the richest men in the world. Less well known, however, is the other guy behind the deal: Gerry Cardinale of the private equity firm RedBird Capital. With RedBird's $2 billion stake in Skydance's $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global, Cardinale has been a key player in the 19 months of machinations ahead of the transfer of power from Shari Redstone to the Ellisons. Ahead of the closing of the deal, Paramount was already showing signs of private equity-style fiscal austerity. Under Redstone, the company pushed through sweeping layoffs and parted ways with multiple top-paid executives—and Ellison has promised to find another $2 billion in cost savings. Paramount also cut loose The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and settled a $16 million lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump over a 60 Minutes interview. After Skydance agreed to 'ensure that the new company's programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum,' and to 'root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media,' Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr approved the deal on July 24. The moves garnered criticism from those who saw the Trump settlement as an indirect bribe and the cancellation of Colbert, a frequent critic of Trump, as an effort to curry favor with the president. Now, with the deal done, Cardinale's influence is clearly delineated: RedBird holds 22.5% of Paramount's voting rights while David Ellison will hold 50% of voting rights and his father will hold the remaining 27.5%. Several alums of the firm are in the C-suite: Running the company alongside Ellison are two Cardinale lieutenants—Jeff Shell as President and Andy Gordon as COO. Cardinale did not respond to requests for comment for this story. An 'IP monetization engine' comes to Hollywood Cardinale's rise to Hollywood kingmaker marks a watershed moment for the entertainment industry. Private equity firms have been making moves in Hollywood for some time, but Redbird's stake in the Paramount deal is by far the largest to date. Unlike the moguls, creatives, and dynasties who traditionally ruled the studios, Cardinale is an outsider—a product of Wall Street, not Paramount's backlot culture. But it's a trait he sees as an asset. 'I really think being from outside that ecosystem—or at least one foot in, one foot out—is a huge competitive advantage,' he told Fortune's Paolo Confino in 2024. 'I don't get caught up in the headlines. I don't get caught up in the emotionalism. I'm not running to go to the Oscars.' Cardinale—a former Rhodes scholar and the kind of finance wonk who uses terms like 'technological disintermediation'—suggests that it will take real discipline to position the iconic but battered studio for tech-forward survival in a ruthless streaming era. This same unforgiving strategic discipline made RedBird formidable in sports and entertainment. 'We're an IP monetization engine,' Cardinale told Fortune last year. 'That's what we do.' At Paramount, it will likely mean leveraging the legendary Hollywood studio's trove of movies, shows, and other IP, while cutting costs and improving efficiency. 'We should be able to make movies for half the cost,' Cardinale told Puck. 'We should be able to make original content for half the cost.' While Paramount is Cardinale's highest-profile investment, it's by no means the dealmaker's public debut. The 58-year-old investor has been betting big for nearly three decades, having cut his teeth at Goldman Sachs before founding RedBird (a play on his last name) in 2014. The firm now has $12 billion in assets under management and six global offices. Despite having built a multibillion-dollar private equity empire, Cardinale previously told Fortune he rejects the term 'mogul,' describing himself simply as an investor. The finance world wasn't always appealing to Cardinale, he told Bloomberg's The Deal in 2024: 'I wasn't one of these Wharton kids who knew I wanted to go to Wall Street from day one,' he said. Cardinale grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and attended Harvard University, where he rowed heavyweight crew and graduated magna cum laude before studying politics and political theory at Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. It was while working at a Tokyo think tank that Cardinale began considering a career in finance, joining Goldman as an analyst in 1992 at the firm's Hong Kong and Singapore offices, and later moving to New York. In 2001, Cardinale helped persuade Yankees owner George Steinbrenner to launch the YES regional sports network, with Goldman sinking a $335 million private equity investment into the project. Cardinale saw the opportunity for the Yankees to monetize their own content—games, analysis, and original programming—rather than simply selling broadcast rights to local cable. The risky YES deal netted hundreds of millions in annual cash flow and fast-tracked Cardinale's promotion to partner at Goldman in 2004. Eight years later, Goldman and Providence Equity sold a 49% stake in YES to News Corp at a valuation exceeding $3 billion—up from a starting valuation around $850 million in 2001. Cardinale's success with the Yankees helped prove what was to become a foundational thesis for his investment strategy empire: While platforms, formats, and technologies shift, the audience attachment to compelling IP (a storied sports team, a blockbuster movie franchise, a beloved character) persists. This durability enables monetization through endless new business models as the landscape evolves. 'I'm able to look at the sports industry, and the media and entertainment industry, as ecosystems,' Cardinale explained to Fortune in 2024, speaking of his ownership of the Italian soccer team AC Milan and his efforts to replace the team's crumbling century-old stadium with a brand-new Yankee Stadium-like arena. 'And then what I do is I look for dislocations. I look for areas where there's a need for improvement, evolution, and professionalization.' Cardinale left Goldman in 2013 and founded RedBird the following year with $665 million he raised for an inaugural fund. Cardinale's strategy at RedBird has consistently followed his formula: Acquire premium intellectual property, streamline costs, then monetize it. This priority is reflected in the firm's portfolio. As well as AC Milan, with its millions of global fans, Redbird purchased an 11% stake in Fenway Sports Group, the holding company that owns the Boston Red Sox, English soccer team Liverpool FC, and the regional sports channel New England Sports Network. Then, with the help of FSG, RedBird invested in NBA star LeBron James's entertainment company SpringHill, in a $725 million deal. Outside of sports, RedBird backed Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's film production company, Artists Equity, and acquired the production company behind the critically acclaimed British television show Fleabag and the reality game show Squid Game: The Challenge. In 2024, the firm entered the news game, agreeing to purchase the U.K. publications the Telegraph and the Spectator alongside co-investors from the United Arab Emirates, in a deal shepherded by former CNN head Jeff Zucker. Despite objections from some in the UK government about foreign influence over institutions of British media, in May, the Telegraph acquisition went through in a deal valued at upwards of $640 million. Cardinale has also long backed David Ellison's vision for Skydance. In 2020, RedBird became the second largest investor in Ellison's company, leading a $275 million capital raise. Cardinale helped raise an additional $400 million for Skydance in 2022. For Cardinale, content is king Cardinale's friend Bob Iger, the Disney CEO, sees Cardinale as a natural when it comes to the business of culture. 'He gets the fact that great IP is the equivalent of beachfront property,' Iger told Fortune last year. 'He knows that the world is in need of entertainment, and regardless of the means in which they get it, or how it's monetized, there's real value to it, and it's long-term.' So far, this ethos has paid off for Cardinale. But the road ahead for Paramount is full of formidable challenges: a declining linear TV sector, billions in debt, brutal streaming wars, and a workforce still reeling from multiple layoffs—and likely more to come with the additional $2 billion in cuts pledged by Ellison. The new leadership's promise of 'transformation' now rests on whether they can drive efficiency without eviscerating the creative core. To do so, Paramount, a Skydance Corporation, will likely bank on Cardinale's IP-optimizing strategy. In Cardinale's model, every acquisition is meant to outlast market cycles and fads, thriving on operational rigor and adaptable 'platform value' that eclipses the old trophy asset mentality. And Paramount, with its more than 100 years of lore, upwards of 1,200 film titles, and the distribution rights to thousands of other films, is chock full of platform value. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Paramount TV Studios Reborn Under Skydance, One Year After Shutting Down
A year ago, Paramount Television Studios was shuttered in a cost-cutting move as its parent company prepared to merge with Skydance. With that deal on the verge of closing, the new Paramount is reviving the Paramount TV Studios name — which will in turn absorb one of the company's two remaining studio operations as well as the formerly independent Skydance Television. More from The Hollywood Reporter David Ellison Sets His Team: These Are the People Who Will Run the New Paramount 'The Naked Gun': What the Critics Are Saying Samantha Bee Laments 'Late Show' Cancellation: "It's Awful" Skydance TV president Matt Thunell is set to lead Paramount TV Studios, reporting to Dana Goldberg, the newly named co-chair of Paramount Pictures (with Josh Greenstein) and chair of Paramount Television. Reps for Skydance and Paramount hadn't returned a request for comment as of publication time. The reconstituted Paramount TV Studios will house productions currently under Showtime/MTV Entertainment, the home of prolific creator Taylor Sheridan (the Yellowstone-verse, Landman et al), key Showtime series like the Dexter franchise and Yellowjackets, and Netflix's Emily in Paris, among others. It will also be home to Skydance productions including Prime Video's Reacher and Cross — which were co-productions with the former Paramount TV Studios. Paramount announced in August 2024 that PTVS, then led by Nicole Clemens, would shut down. Its productions — including the aforementioned Reacher and Cross and Apple TV+'s Murderbot — moved to CBS Studios. The shutdown was part of a wave of cost-cutting moves, which included hundreds of layoffs, in the year-plus leading up to the merger, which is set to formally close on Aug. 7. Former Paramount co-CEO Chris McCarthy previously headed Showtime/MTV Entertainment but will not remain with the merged company after the deal closes. Keith Cox, head of scripted at Showtime/MTV Entertainment, is expected to stay on; Cox has a long working relationship with Sheridan and David C. Glasser, the head of 101 Studios which co-produces Sheridan's shows and Showtime's The Agency. Thunell became president of Skydance TV in late 2022 after nearly eight years at Netflix, where he oversaw development and production of series in the U.S. and Canada. Former Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks will have CBS Studios in his portfolio as the merged company's chair of TV media, which also includes the CBS network and the company's cable channels. Deadline first reported the news. Best of The Hollywood Reporter How the Warner Brothers Got Their Film Business Started Meet the World Builders: Hollywood's Top Physical Production Executives of 2023 Men in Blazers, Hollywood's Favorite Soccer Podcast, Aims for a Global Empire Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Paramount Streaming Chief Tom Ryan to Exit Amid Skydance Deal Close
With Skydance set to close on its takeover of Paramount Global later this week, and with incoming CEO David Ellison having named his senior leadership team this morning, Paramount streaming chief Tom Ryan will be among the executives departing. Ryan informed his staff Monday that he will exit the company in connection with the deal, though he will continue as an advisor to incoming direct-to-consumer chief Cindy Holland to help ensure a smooth transition. More from The Hollywood Reporter "Forever Grateful": Shari Redstone Signs Off As Paramount's Owner Ahead of Skydance Deal Close 'Top Gun: Maverick' Copyright Lawsuit Over Screenplay Credit Dismissed Josh Greenstein Leaving Sony for Major Role at Paramount Once Skydance Merger Closes Ryan was the founder of Pluto TV, the free ad-supported streaming service, which sold to Paramount predecessor Viacom in 2019 in a $340 million deal. Pluto was an innovator in the FAST space, building a business that most companies are now in and exploring. Ryan stayed with the company, and has been leading Paramount's streaming business, inclusive of both Pluto and Paramount+. You can read Ryan's note, below. Team, After twelve phenomenal years entertaining the planet together, the time has come for me to say goodbye. I leave with deep gratitude and pride for a team I love and admire, and for Pluto TV and Paramount+, streaming services that started as bold ideas and have since grown into global powerhouses. This has been the journey of a lifetime. From the early days of Pluto TV — born out of a tiny West Hollywood warehouse (that is now, in true LA fashion, a cannabis dispensary) — to the incredible launch and scale of Paramount+, this ride has been nothing short of extraordinary. When we introduced Pluto TV, we were criticized for betting on a free, linear, ad-supported streaming model, when the world was focused only on paid, on-demand, ad-free services. Launching on April Fool's Day admittedly didn't help. But we embraced an underdog spirit, remained steadfast and proved the skeptics wrong when the service was acquired by Viacom just five years later and became sustainably profitable the year following. Together, we helped pioneer FAST before it had a name. We transformed Pluto TV into a billion-dollar business with over 80 million users. We came together to launch Paramount+ into a crowded market and, against all odds, made it the fastest-growing SVOD in the U.S and one of the top four SVOD platforms worldwide. We scaled to 78 million subscribers, hit profitability milestones ahead of schedule and faster than our peers, and just drove Paramount Streaming to a $2.2 billion quarter. This is remarkable growth compared to $1.8 billion for the entire yearwhen we launched the division less than 5 years ago. Even more impressively, our division also generated $157 million in quarterly profit and achieved global profitability for the first half of 2025. But more than the numbers, we built something that mattered—with heart, hustle, and a whole lot of grit. What I'll miss most, though, is you — the people, the team, and the culture we created. Through every challenge, especially the more recent ones, you showed up with courage, creativity, and an unshakable sense of purpose. You've inspired me every single day and I'm a better leader for it. It has been the honor and privilege of my career to lead and work alongside this exceptional team. Thank you for the laughs, the late nights, the karaoke sessions, the bold ideas, and the unwavering belief in what we could do together. While I'll be stepping away from my day-to-day role following the close of the deal, I'll be staying on in an advisory capacity to Cindy Holland and the Streaming leadership team to help ensure a smooth and successful transition. I have no doubt that you'll continue to achieve spectacular things, and I'll be cheering you on every step of the way. Tom Best of The Hollywood Reporter How the Warner Brothers Got Their Film Business Started Meet the World Builders: Hollywood's Top Physical Production Executives of 2023 Men in Blazers, Hollywood's Favorite Soccer Podcast, Aims for a Global Empire Solve the daily Crossword