WarnerMedia's incoming CEO is known as a firebrand who's attentive to user experience on direct-to-consumer platforms
On April 1, only an hour after WarnerMedia revealed that Jason Kilar had been named its new CEO, Netflix chief Reed Hastings sent a tweet congratulating the former Hulu chief on his new gig, writing, “Scary for us to have you there.”
Although he’s well known in entertainment and tech circles, Kilar’s hiring caught some Hollywood insiders off guard. Despite a résumé that includes time as a senior vp at Amazon and two years leading video startup Vessel, which struggled to catch on with users and ultimately sold its technology to Verizon, Kilar, 48, has never run a large media organization.
In interviews, Kilar has praised the work of executives like Greenblatt, Zucker and Warner Bros. chair and CEO Ann Sarnoff. "These are world-class leaders," he says. “My job is going to be quite a bit different than any of those jobs." In his six years at Hulu — during which time he helped grow the business to nearly $700 million in revenue and 3 million subscribers — Kilar earned a reputation as a firebrand passionate about product and customer satisfaction. He would have heated debates about every aspect of the Hulu experience, down to the font selection. “This is an impulse business; you need to make it easy,” he said in a keynote at the 2008 NAB show.
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