Keith Summa, a veteran network producer, has been promoted to senior vice president, content and programming at Fusion, the network announced Monday.
“Keith has proven time and again his commitment to innovative, cross-platform storytelling–and now he will be taking that spirit and applying it to all our original productions as well as our development and acquisition strategy,” said Fusion president and chief content officer Daniel Eilemberg in a memo to staff.
Summa, who joined Fusion in 2012, previously served as head of the CBS News investigative unit, and worked for 15 years as a producer at ABC News and Peter Jennings Productions.
At Fusion, he has led the investigative team and the cross-platform investigative franchise The Naked Truth. In his new role, Summa will assume responsibility for America with Jorge Ramos, news specials, documentaries/docu-series, and comedy documentaries.
Another Fusion original is also getting an expanded role at the network–George Lansbury has been promoted to senior vice president of production and programming, while Alexis Madrigal has been promoted to senior vice president of content & editor-in-chief.
Here’s the full memo:
Hola FUSION,
As mentioned in our meetings earlier this month, several members of our talented team will be taking on new roles as we enter the next phase of FUSION’s growth and evolution. We will be making a few announcements in the coming days and weeks, the first of which I am excited to share today.
Keith Summa will be taking on an expanded role as Senior Vice President of Content & Programming.
Over the past few years Keith has assembled one of the best and most diverse investigative reporting teams I have seen — diverse by gender, ethnicity, age, experience, and background. Collectively they have produced impactful projects that have exposed injustice and led to real change. The success of these efforts led to our decision to double the size of the team and launch our new investigative franchise The Naked Truth earlier this year.
Keith has proven time and again his commitment to innovative, cross-platform storytelling — and now he will be taking that spirit and applying it to all our original productions as well as our development and acquisition strategy.
In his new role Keith will continue to oversee the investigative team and “The Naked Truth” while assuming executive responsibility for “AMERICA with Jorge Ramos,” news specials, documentaries/docu-series, and our topical comedy docs. In addition, he will be working closely with Mark and George as we look to bring our partner network (The Root, The Onion, and others) to a wider television audience via FUSION. I am confident he will bring a fresh and open-minded perspective to how we tell compelling stories for our audience on platforms ranging from TV and OTT. Mark Lima, Bryan Carmel, and Dax Tejera will now report to Keith.
Beyond his honed sense for a good story, Keith also has a great eye for talent. I have watched him mentor and support so many young journalists throughout the company, challenging them to experiment and break with convention, and I can’t wait to see the broader impact he will have moving forward.
Another FUSION original is also stepping into an expanded role. I am excited to announce that George Lansbury has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Production and Programming.
George has been a crucial member of the FUSION family since our inception. His fingerprints are all over many key moments in FUSION’s history – from the opening of Newsport and the assembling of our launch team to the brand-defining execution of the Iowa Brown and Black Forum.
In his expanded role George will continue to oversee third-party productions like “The Chris Gethard Show” (Funny or Die), “Drug Wars” (Paraiso), and “Traffickers” (Lightbox) among others, while adding oversight of the production management, post-production, and network engineering teams. George has a proven track record of bringing people together to find creative ways to tackle complicated problems. His ability to find creative ways to eliminate the barriers that stand in the way of creative storytelling is extremely valuable to our organization.
What is great about George is that while he is a TV vet that has worked at places like VH1 and Cablevision/AMC Networks, he’s also eager to explore new ways of delivering content to our audience where they are (and doing so in the most efficient way). Earlier this year he was a driving force behind our efforts to expand FUSION’s ability to produce high-quality live-streams on platforms like Facebook.
With George and Jigar working together on a series of projects I know FUSION will make great strides toward operational excellence.
Finally, Alexis Madrigal has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Content & Editor-in-Chief. Over the past year Alexis has helped cultivate an amazing editorial team that is full of diverse, passionate voices. We have seen rapid growth in both audience and engagement on FUSION.net and with Alexis, Dodai, Joyce, Geraldine, Kevin and the other vertical editors continuing to focus our efforts, we will keep growing to new heights.
I want to give a special nod to the Real Future team, who has become a great example of how we should build our editorial brands across platforms (digital, TV, social, events). Alexis and Keith will be working closely over the next several months to extend that same approach to our other verticals.
As I mentioned in our meetings over the past few weeks, our leadership team is not complete and I look forward to sharing more exciting news soon. In the meantime, please join me in congratulating Keith, George, and Alexis on their expanded roles.
Abrazos,
Danny