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Starz is bolstering its domestic team with a new chief marketing officer.
Top line
On Thursday, Starz announced several executive promotions and hires, including Jimmy Hilburn joining as CMO. Hilburn will report to Alison Hoffman, president of domestic networks.
Between the lines
In addition, Susan Ievoli joins Starz as svp of publicity, events and awards, reporting to Hilburn. The company also promoted Robin Chacko to evp, DTC, reporting to Hoffman.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Jimmy and Susan to the Starz team and elevate Robin’s oversight in a key area of the business,” Hoffman said. “These best-in-class executives are creative disruptors who are as strategic and analytical as they are innovative. They will further amplify the company’s momentum as we continue to grow our subscriber base and develop premium campaigns in support of our robust slate.”
As CMO, Hilburn will oversee all teams across marketing, media, publicity and creative.
Before joining the company, Hilburn was director of marketing at Netflix, working on high-profile launches such as Bridgerton, Ozark, Narcos and House of Cards. The exec also helped establish the company’s signature comedy brand, Netflix is a Joke.
Bottom line
It’s been an interesting year for Starz, with Lionsgate previously announcing it was planning to spin off the company before backtracking on that statement in favor of spinning out its studio business instead.
When talking with Adweek at the Convergent TV Summit West in October, Hoffman couldn’t speak to the situation with Lionsgate but explained where Starz fits in in the overall industry, especially with the constant disruption and ongoing consolidation of several outlets.
“We are focused on premium. We are focused on SVOD. We are focused on maintaining our business strategy amidst all this disruption and continuing to be that complimentary layer to a lot of the broad-based players,” Hoffman said. “We know there’s a profitable business there. We run profitably, and we’re excited about the future. We’re excited to keep expanding on what we’re doing.”
