Roku Ad Chief Alison Levin Joining NBCUniversal In Sales Shake-Up

NBCUniversal is shaking up its ad sales division with the hire of a newly promoted Roku executive.

Alison Levin, who was promoted to head of global media revenue at Roku only last month, is joining NBCU as president of advertising and partnerships.

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She will report to NBCU’s Advertising and Partnerships Global Chairman Mark Marshall, who was promoted to the role in August following the departure of Linda Yaccarino to become CEO of X, formerly known as Twitter.

It is the latest change in the ad sales division of NBCU, which has also seen the departure of high-level execs including Krishan Bhatia and Laura Molen.

Elsewhere, Karen Kovacs has been promoted to president of client partnerships for its ad division, also reporting to Marshall. Kovacs was previously EVP, Client Partnerships for NBCUniversal’s Advertising and Partnership’s division.

Levin will join next month and will oversee all advertising sales initiatives for NBCUniversal across national, local, Peacock, sports and Olympic and Paralympic Sales.

Levin had only just started her new role – she was previously VP, Global Ad Revenue and Marketing Solutions at Roku – before the NBCU opportunity came long. She was the company’s first ad sales hire and it marks a blow for the Charlie Collier-run streaming company. Collier is expected to look outside the company and bring in an external hire for Levin’s role, marking the first external hire since the former Fox chief joined last year.

“Alison is extremely well-respected across the advertising ecosystem for her focus on partnership as well as her innovative leadership in the Connected TV and digital ad space,” Marshall said. “As a pioneer of the shift to data-driven selling, Alison brought instrumental value to the marketplace at large, and I have no doubt her acumen and experience will bring incredible value to our team.  Karen Kovacs has been essential in the collaboration and growth of our enterprise partnerships with clients, and I could not be more thrilled to have these two talented executives join our broader leadership team in advancing our division forward.”

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