VP, Marketing Planning & Operations, CNN

About the job

Storytelling is, and will always be, the heart of what we do at Skydance.

Our vision is to build a thriving entertainment ecosystem where stories and worlds are imagined, brought to life and experienced. We create for every age and audience, anchored by the strength of our content and experiences and the depth of our connection with fans. We are creator-first, audience-focused, tech-forward, globally scaled.

Here, you’ll work with talented teams that move fast, think boldly and collaborate with purpose to deliver results. We aim high, champion the best ideas and win together, earning the trust of our employees, creators, partners and audiences every day.

If you’re energized by the opportunity to help build the next-generation global media and entertainment company powered by creativity and technology, we’d be thrilled to welcome you aboard. LET’S GO!

We are the now and the next. The power behind the people building the future. We are born from the spirit of innovation. We are created from the idea that people around the world want more, need more, deserve more. We are the home of the global digital revolution. We are CNN.ㅤ

Your New Role...

CNN Marketing is seeking a strategic, highly collaborative, and dynamic VP, Marketing Planning & Operations to lead cross-functional planning and execution of holistic marketing programs. Reporting directly to the Head of Marketing, this executive will serve as the critical cross-functional bridge and own the end-to-end marketing planning and operating model that connects all marketing verticals. Crucially, this role will serve as the central point for cross-functional planning and operational modernization, driving internal efficiency and alignment. This includes standardizing workflows, upgrading planning and campaign documentation and knowledge sharing, and actively championing the integration of cutting-edge automation and AI efficiency tools across the marketing organization.

As a member of the marketing leadership team, this role is accountable for driving marketing effectiveness in partnership with brand and growth team leads, ensuring marketing priorities and campaigns deliver measurable business outcomes with executional excellence and rigor.

Your Role Accountabilities...

Operational Orchestration & Integration

• Project Prioritization: Track official intake, timing, dependencies, and troubleshooting for all tiered marketing initiatives that are directly tied to measurable business objectives. Work with marketing leads and content leaders to define clear, data-backed criteria for prioritization and manage and communicate rolling updates.
• Integration Across Functions: Act as the primary touchpoint to unify marketing verticals to ensure on-strategy and on-time campaign execution. Ensure full coordination across teams, maintaining alignment from planning through optimization.
• Holistic Planning: Oversee planning architecture, ensuring all marketing verticals are fully synchronized from brief to execution to post-mortem. Define and enforce standardized campaign timelines and key milestones across all initiatives to deliver coordinated, on-time execution.
• Cross-Functional Governance: Establish and lead structured governance forums, including campaign readiness reviews and weekly orchestration meetings, to drive alignment and mitigate risk.
• Approvals & Decisioning: Ensure clear, streamlined approval processes across all campaign stages, enabling timely decision-making and minimizing bottlenecks across stakeholders.
• Delivery Excellence: Facilitate seamless, accurate, and timely campaign delivery, ensuring all assets and deliverables meet defined quality assurance standards prior to launch.
• Post-Mortems: Lead standardized post-campaign reviews to capture process and key learnings, improve future planning, and drive continuous performance improvement.

Team Leadership

• Team Management: Build and scale the Marketing Planning and Operations function over time, including clearly defining existing and new functions, day-to-day team management, active mentoring, and career growth opportunities.
• Resource Planning: Continually assess team bandwidth and capacity across planning and integrated execution, working with the Head of Marketing and Marketing Leads to assess known gaps and support shifting business priorities.

Operational Excellence, Standards & AI Innovation

• Ways of Working: Define, implement, and enforce modernized, agile ways of working across the marketing ecosystem. Break down departmental silos to ensure teams move in lockstep to accomplish shared goals and exceed business KPIs.
• Performance Benchmarks: Define and enforce operational KPIs and performance benchmarks to ensure consistency and accountability.
• Strategic Documentation: Establish and scale unified templates for strategic briefs, campaign frameworks, marketing roadmaps, and post-mortems to ensure consistency, clarity, and executive-ready quality across all team outputs.
• AI-Driven Planning & Efficiency Tools: Lead the exploration, onboarding, and adoption of modern AI-driven operational tools for marketing team productivity. Empower the team to automate repetitive workflows, optimize resource management, and scale marketing planning and campaign execution through emerging technology.
• Single Source of Truth: Establish a centralized marketing planning and campaign management approach and tooling to facilitate reliance on a unified and transparent single source of truth. Set up a unified marketing repository and optimize creative and media workflows to enable consistent planning, execution, and reporting.

Your Qualifications & Experience...

• 12+ years of progressive marketing leadership experience within major media, entertainment, streaming, or digital consumer brands.
• Hands-on operational management of paid media campaigns and/or owned and operated marketing channels.
• Proven track record of managing complex, high-profile campaigns and building long-range marketing calendars or promotional roadmaps.
• Ability to prioritize team workload based on known or potential contribution to business objectives.
• Demonstrated experience driving operational transformation within complex, matrixed organizations, including rewriting organizational workflows, scaling marketing structures, and rolling out new enterprise tools.
• Experience operating across integrated marketing ecosystems, including brand, media, digital, social, and content production.

Your Skills & Competencies…

• Operational Modernizer: Passionate about organizational design and internal efficiency; possesses a strong point of view on how modern marketing teams should collaborate, document strategy, and utilize technology.
• AI & Tech-Forward Mindset: Forward-thinking approach to internal tools, with practical familiarity regarding how Generative AI, automation, and project management tools can optimize marketing workflows.
• Diplomacy & Influence: High emotional intelligence; an executive who can confidently usher teams through change management, standardizing processes without stifling strategic and creative output.
• Enterprise Operator: Ability to operate at scale within a global, matrixed organization, balancing strategic vision with operational rigor and execution discipline.
• Commercial Acumen: Strong understanding of marketing investment, budget management, and ROI measurement to inform prioritization and decision-making.

About Skydance

Skydance is a next-generation global media and entertainment company, comprised of three business segments: Studios, Direct-to-Consumer, and TV Media. Skydance's portfolio unites legendary brands, including Paramount, Warner Bros., HBO and HBO Max, Paramount+, Pluto TV, CBS, CNN, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, MTV, Food Network, BET, HGTV, and Comedy Central.

Some Important Details

We embrace the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit. In line with the laws of the country or region in which the role is based, this includes consideration without regard to race, color, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, religion or belief, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, pregnancy, parenthood, physical or mental disability, genetic information, military or protected veteran status, union status or any other category protected by applicable law.

If you’re a qualified candidate with a disability and you require adjustments or accommodations during the job application and/or recruitment process, please visit our accessibility page for instructions to submit your request.

Hiring Salary Range: $161,070.00 - $299,130.00 per year

In compliance with local law, we are disclosing compensation, or a range thereof, for roles where legally required. Actual salaries will vary based on a variety of job-related factors, including but not limited to geographic location, external market data, internal equity, skill set, experience, training, education, and/or performance. Base pay is just one component of our total compensation package. Other rewards may include annual bonuses, short- and long-term incentives, and program-specific awards. In addition, Warner Bros. Discovery provides a variety of benefits to employees, including health insurance coverage, an employee wellness program, life and disability insurance, a retirement savings plan, paid holidays and sick time and vacation.