A senior executive at Disney Advertising Sales has left as the media giant focuses on its “upfront” talks with advertisers.
What’s Happening:
- Variety reports that Lisa Valentino, a senior executive at Disney Advertising Sales, has departed the company.
- Valentino, who had previously been with Disney, returned to the company as executive vice president of category sales and client solutions.
- Recently, she had praised Disney’s new ad-tech embracing new methods of categorizing audiences to help advertisers reach their consumer base with more precision.
- According to people familiar with the company, her departure was part of a planned restructuring of the advertising sales staff. Disney Advertising told Variety “Any employee impacted by a reorganization that has access to confidential information would be required to exit.”
- Valentino returned to Disney in 2019 after having previously served as senior ad sales executive at ESPN. In between her stints at Disney, Valentino worked as executive vice president at Univision and chief revenue officer at Conde Nast, the publisher of Vogue and The New Yorker.
- With Disney in the midst of the “upfront,” a period of time usually from May through mid-summer where TV networks sell the majority of their commercial inventory for their next programming cycle, it is an unusual time to restructure their advertising department.
- Valentino has yet to comment on her departure.
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