WildBrain reconfigures its executive ranks

Stephanie Betts and Deirdre Brennan move up to CCO and COO, Damon Berger joins as the company's first-ever CMO, and Jon Gisby is leaving.
September 21, 2021

WildBrain has just announced several C-suite appointments that will reshape its leadership ranks, setting up a new chief content officer, chief operating officer and chief marketing officer.

Stephanie Betts (pictured right) has been promoted from EVP of content and current series to CCO, with the responsibility for overseeing the company’s content slate and cultivating an artist-led culture across from its animated and live-action content. Betts has been with WildBrain since 2010, and she worked at Breakthrough Films & Television and Atomic Cartoons earlier in her career.

Deirdre Brennan (pictured center) is moving up from EVP of content partnerships to COO. She will continue to oversee content and distribution operations, but her remit now includes oversight of WildBrain Spark in order to make the company’s content strategy more holistic, according to a release. Prior to joining WildBrain, Brennan held top-level children’s content positions with broadcasters, including Universal Kids, Corus Kids, ABC Australia, BBC Worldwide and Nickelodeon.

Both Brennan and Betts start in their new roles immediately and will continue to report to WildBrain president Josh Scherba.

The company has also hired Damon Berger (pictured left) earlier this month as its first-ever CMO, with a focus on taking advantage of new business and revenue opportunities in media sales, social commerce and digital marketing. He is expected to develop best-in-class partnerships and client services across the company’s portfolio of capabilities, assets and IPs. Reporting to CEO Eric Ellenbogen, Berger’s first task will be to build a digital marketing team for WildBrain Spark. He served in a variety of marketing and business development executive roles at Mattel, Fullscreen, What’s Trending and 20th Century Fox prior to joining WildBrain.

As part of the reshuffle, the WildBrain Spark managing director role has been eliminated, and Jon Gisby has left the company. This comes on the heels of a challenging two years for WildBrain Spark, which saw its revenue drop by 64% in Q4 2020 (despite a growth in viewership), leading the company to an overall 3% annual revenue loss. And the division posted a 26% decline in fiscal 2021 overall.

About The Author
Alexandra Whyte is Kidscreen's News & Social Media Editor. Contact her at awhyte@brunico.com

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