Starz announced changes to the domestic leadership team under Alison Hoffman, President, of Domestic Networks, with two hires, including a new Starz Chief Marketing Officer and a key internal promotion. Jimmy Hilburn joins as Chief Marketing Officer, and Susan Ievoli joins as Senior Vice President of Publicity, Events, and Awards, reporting to Hilburn. Further bolstering the team, Robin Chacko has been upped to Executive Vice President, Direct-to-Consumer from Senior Vice President, OTT Marketing, and will continue to report to Hoffman.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Jimmy and Susan to the Starz team and elevate Robin’s oversight in a key area of the business,” said Hoffman. “These best-in-class executives are creative disruptors who are as strategic and analytical as they are innovative. They will further amplify the company’s momentum as we continue to grow our subscriber base and develop premium campaigns in support of our robust slate.”
Ievoli takes over for Jennifer Minezaki-Washington, who was promoted in March 2021 to Executive Vice President, Corporate and Brand Communications, reporting to Jeffrey Hirsch, President and CEO at Starz. As Chief Marketing Officer, veteran marketing executive Hilburn is charged with overseeing all teams across marketing, media, publicity, and creative. Before joining Starz, Hilburn was Director of Marketing at Netflix, where he led original series launches for “Bridgerton,” “Ozark,” “Narcos,” “House of Cards” and “Dear White People,” among others. In addition, he helped establish the company’s stand-up comedy brand Netflix is a Joke, and built creative teams across the globe to support Netflix’s slate of international originals. Before that, Hilburn served as Director of Marketing at AMC, where he launched the network’s inaugural slate of original programming, including “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” and “The Walking Dead.”
In her role overseeing Starz's publicity, events, and awards team, Ievoli leads the streaming platform’s programming publicity and awards campaigns and strategy. She is also responsible for the company’s events and talent relations. Most recently, Ievoli served as Senior Vice President, Public Relations and Social Media for The History Channel, where she oversaw publicity and social media and led the network’s trade and consumer communications, awards, and talent relations. Ievoli joined A+E Networks as Director, Publicity, where she was integral in launching HISTORY’s first scripted programming slate and spearheaded the awards and press campaigns for the Emmy award-winning limited series “Hatfields & McCoys.” She has also led campaigns for the critically acclaimed, Emmy-nominated limited series “Roots” and the hit drama series “Vikings.” Prior, she was a publicity executive at Turner Broadcasting, overseeing publicity campaigns at TNT, TBS, Turner Classic Movies, and truTV for hit programming such as “The Closer,” “Southland,” and “Conan.” Ievoli is based in NYC.
Chacko joined Starz in 2017 as Senior Vice President, Growth Marketing & Product Management. In 2018, Chacko was named by Variety as one of Hollywood’s New Leaders in Digital. In his newly elevated role, Chacko leads Growth Marketing, Product Management, and Subscriber Operations for the family of STARZ apps on mobile, streaming boxes, game consoles, smart TVs, and the web. Prior to Starz, Chacko led Product Management and CRM for Jam City, and before that led Group Operations for Tetris Hasbro and Pogo Studio at gaming giant Electronic Arts and served as Head of Game Analytics for EA Mobile. Through his work across Jam City and EA, Chacko has helped launch and manage live services for over 30 video games.
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