• by Wayne Friedman , November 2, 2022

Under the new leadership of John Halley, president of Paramount Advertising, the company is making a major restructuring effort with senior-level executives.

Halley says the advertising unit will align workflows around six of the big media agency holding companies and other businesses for efficiency to help clients gain multiplatform reach with ad units and opportunities across broadcast, cable, digital and streaming. 

Each of two Paramount sales groups will be structured mostly around three media holding companies:

Karen Phillips is now executive vice president/head of agency Partnerships, Paramount Advertising, responsible for Omnicom Media Group, GroupM, Horizon Media, as well as independents and new business development. 

Chris Simon, now executive vice president/head of agency partnerships, Paramount Advertising, will lead a team focused on Interpublic Group, Dentsu and Publicis.

In addition, there will be “a dedicated digital infrastructure” focused on Paramount Global’s digital portfolio of ad-supported streaming on Paramount+ and Pluto TV.  

David Lawenda will now be chief digital advertising officer, overseeing digital sales efforts, programmatic and local.  Lawenda reports to Halley.

Paramount will also have “specialty” sales groups for sports, prime, kids programming, programmatic, vantage, creative plus, and performance marketing. 

John Bogusz will be executive vice president/sports overseeing CBS Television Network and CBS Sports Network.

Louis Carr is now president, broadcast media sales for BET, responsible for linear and digital advertising sales and integrated marketing. Dave Morris is chief client officer, focusing on delivering a unified sales strategy across top clients.

Linda Rene will be executive vice president/prime-time sales/branded partnerships, responsible for prime-time sales, branded entertainment and client-supplied programming. 

Travis Scoles will now be senior vice president/advanced advertising, overseeing Paramount’s  Vantage unit -- which uses data and predictive algorithms to create media schedules designed to reach defined, custom target audiences -- as well as managing currency and measurement innovation. 

In September, Halley ascended to his new role at the company.

Jo Ann Ross, the longtime company veteran who most recently was president and chief advertising revenue officer of U.S. advertising sales for Paramount Global, has moved to an advisory role as chairman of Paramount Advertising.

This story has been updated.