DISNEY|ABC ANNOUNCES ADDITION OF TWO KEY SENIOR EXECUTIVES
FOR NEWLY CREATED ROLES
Cindy Davis Named Executive Vice President, Consumer Experience
John Frelinghuysen Named Executive Vice President, Digital Media,
Strategy and Business Development
Burbank, CA (Tuesday, September 15, 2015) — Ben Sherwood, Co-Chairman, Disney Media Networks and President, Disney|ABC Television Group, today announced the hiring of two key direct reports into newly created roles. Cindy Davis joins as Executive Vice President, Consumer Experience — and John Frelinghuysen joins as Executive Vice President, Digital Media, Strategy and Business Development.
As Executive Vice President, Consumer Experience, Ms. Davis will be responsible for improving existing research capabilities across multiple platforms and enhancing our consumer insights and analytic capabilities to support our business strategies. She will be responsible with developing an overall consumer experience strategy that will provide greater personalization and product opportunities across platforms, enhance the MVPD ecosystem, support our marketing efforts, and inform our advertising and other revenue opportunities. Ms. Davis will also help define and shape our shift to a more programming services and consumer-centric business model.
As Executive Vice President, Digital Media, Strategy and Business Development, Mr. Frelinghuysen will oversee all aspects of strategy and business development across Disney|ABC Television’s portfolio of content and brands for digital content, products and technology as well as all mobile platform efforts. He is charged with defining and executing plans to effectively monetize both new and existing short-form and long-form content and distribution across multiple screens and platforms. He will also work closely with business unit presidents to enable the implementation of their initiatives.
In making the announcement, Mr. Sherwood said, “These two dynamic new leaders bring considerable talent and experience to Disney|ABC that will help drive our business forward and position us for even greater success. I’ve asked Cindy to significantly expand our capability to understand our audience and help us use these new insights to improve the consumer experience on all platforms. John’s mission is to define and execute plans to monetize both new and existing content, as well as to harness the power of the collective Disney|ABC portfolio into a more unified and holistic consumer experience.” He continued, “We have an incredible team here at Disney|ABC, made up of some of the best and brightest in the industry. I’m delighted Cindy and John are joining us, and am confident that they will help lead us to even greater heights.”
Cindy Davis stated, “I can’t imagine a better company to be joining than Disney|ABC Television or a better time to be joining this team. Combining a deeper understanding of today’s viewers with its legacy of brilliant storytelling, Disney|ABC is poised to further engage consumers with the entertainment and news they want, when and where they want to enjoy it. I look forward to helping champion the consumers’ voice within Disney|ABC in a way that drives innovation for viewers and value for the business, our distribution partners, and our shareholders.”
John Frelinghuysen added, “I am thrilled to be joining the Disney|ABC team. There is an unprecedented opportunity for creating new content experiences and driving revenue growth in digital video. Disney|ABC’s global brands and content assets provide an outstanding platform for innovation and realizing the digital opportunity.”
Cindy Davis biographical information:
Prior to joining Disney|ABC, Ms. Davis served as Executive Vice President, Global Customer Insights and Analytics for Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, a position she had held since 2011. In this role, she informed the enterprise strategy with a holistic understanding of the +100 million customers that shop Walmart every week. She established a Center of Excellence for Customer Insights & Analytics that integrated sales data, customer surveys, social signals, and analytics to predict customer needs. She championed the creation of the Customer Knowledge Platform that became the foundation for understanding customers across channels and serving them seamlessly and relevantly. Ms. Davis also re-introduced Syndicated Data into Walmart and Sam’s Club to provide a marketplace view of customer and competitive behavior, driving significant sales and market share growth.
From 2007 until 2011, Ms. Davis had served as Executive Vice President, Membership, Marketing and eCommerce for Sam’s Club, where she had P&L responsibility for all Membership Income, which represented the majority of the $40B+ business segment’s profit. She crafted the “Member Experience Journey” program which leveraged data to target member interactions across all channels (in-club, online, mobile and call center) and created a new sustainable and competitively differentiated brand positioning for Sam’s Club – Savings Made Simple. In addition, she launched a new eCommerce platform – ‘Member Relationship Portal’ — resulting in increased online sales and member engagement, and introduced the first mobile app in club channel history (4+ star rating).
Prior to this, Ms. Davis was President, Global Development and Communications with Rapp Collins Worldwide, the #1 direct marketing agency in the world, where she improved Client Retention by +20% and helped to earn Rapp Collins the designation as the #1 Direct Marketing Agency by Advertising Age for both years in her Managing Director role
Earlier in her career, Ms. Davis held senior executive positions with YUM Brands, Inc., where she was responsible for Brand Positioning, Strategic Development, National and Field Marketing for Pizza Hut; Starwood Vacation Ownership, where she oversaw the introduction of the Westin/Sheraton brands into the growing vacation ownership industry; Harrah’s Entertainment/Promus Hotel Corporation, where she was hired to establish Harrah’s as the first national casino brand with 19 casinos and over $1.5 billion in annual revenue and went on to oversee Brand Management for nearly 200 Doubletree Hotels representing over $1 billion in annual revenues.
She started her career at in advertising at TracyLocke, where she led successful new business efforts including acquisitions of the Embassy Suites and Budget Rent a Car accounts, which went on to win EFFIE awards for creativity and record-breaking results.
An alumna of College of William and Mary, Ms. Davis has a Master’s Degree in International Marketing from Thunderbird School of Global Management.
John Frelinghuysen biographical information:
A respected industry executive with over 20+ years of experience focused on digital strategy, growth and monetization, as well as complex problem-solving, Mr. Frelinghuysen previously served as Senior Vice President & Head of Strategy for AOL, a position he held since 2013. While there, he played a central role in developing a new AOL Corporate strategy, which led to a unique positioning combining content brands and scale in digital video with a fully-integrated, high-growth programmatic advertising technology platform. He also played a lead role in driving major M&A deals focused on new technology capabilities, including Adap.tv in programmatic video, Gravity in content personalization, and Convertro in marketing attribution.
In addition, Mr. Frelinghuysen also spearheaded ground-breaking strategic partnerships. He drove a comprehensive video deal between AOL and NBC Universal, which included digital and linear content production, digital distribution and ad technology. He also led the origination and structuring of AOL’s recently announced global advertising and ad technology partnership with Microsoft.
From 2007 through 2012, Mr. Frelinghuysen was a Partner at Bain & Company, one of the world’s leading management consulting firms, in the Media, Entertainment, and Information Practice, supporting CEOs and top client executives as a trusted advisor and change agent in unlocking new revenue opportunities, deepening customer relationships and improving organizational performance.
In this role, he teamed with CBC/Radio–‐Canada in launching a new corporate strategy called “Everyone, Every Way,” which resulted in a new mission, performance metrics, increased programming and digital investments, and over $100M in organizational efficiency improvements. Mr. Frelinghuysen also supported a leading magazine publisher in accelerating growth of digital products, better monetizing audience relationships, and strengthening key brands, which resulted in $300M+ in new revenue opportunity, the bulk of which were digital.
He helped launch and lead “Making Measurement Make Sense” (3Ms), a cross-industry initiative to transform digital advertising measurement and evaluation with the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), the ANA (Association of National Advertisers), and 4As (American Association of Advertising Agencies) http://www.iab.net/3MS. This multi-year initiative has led to new standards for viewability, measurement of impressions and impact in brand campaigns.
He also designed and led “Building Brands Online” with the IAB, a major project focused on enhancing the effectiveness and driving growth of digital for brand advertising. http://www.iab.net/research/industry_data_and_landscape/buildingbrandsonline
From 1987–2007, Mr. Frelinghuysen worked at Booz Allen Hamilton, the last three years as Lead Partner and Practice Leader, U.S. Media and Entertainment. In this role, he was responsible for leading a team of partners and aligned staff, driving media and entertainment revenue growth of 15-20% annually between 2004–2007.
He supported the private equity buy–outs of Nielsen (formerly VNU) and Clear Channel Communications (now
iHeart Media), two of the largest media sector deals ever by private equity investors, and worked with Viacom’s MTV Networks and BET divisions over a ten year period, helping develop strategies for growth, driving programming ratings improvement, boosting marketing/promotion ROI, establishing new adjacent businesses and enhancing organizational effectiveness. In addition, he led the merger integration of a leading LA-based film studio with a major broadcast network studio.
An alumnus of Princeton University, Mr. Frelinghuysen has an MBA in Marketing/International Business from the Columbia Business School.
