Ynon Kreiz

Oh, this part is wild.

Ynon Kreiz, as the co-CEO of Paramount, is receiving a pay package worth over forty-six point five million dollars.

Forty-six and a half million dollars for one executive, and that is directly tied to the Warner Brothers Paramount merger we were just discussing.

Yes.

Uh, the CEO is the Mattel CEO, the current CEO of Mattel.

His name is Ynon Kreiz, Y-N-O-N K-R-E-I-Z, and you will be unsurprised to learn that he is an Israeli citizen.

Like Miriam Adelson became eventually naturalized as American as well, but he was born in Israel, is Israeli-American, Israeli's American.

And he's gonna be the CEO of this joint v- uh, venture of Paramount, Warner Brothers, CBS News, CNN, and all those other properties.

And he, of course, too, like everybody they empower, the Ellisons, is also a major fanatic, fanatical supporter of Israel.

Here from, uh, The Wrap in October of 2023, just five days after, uh, October 7th, entertainment leaders Gary Barber, Ynon Kreiz, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and more denounced brutal attacks by Israel.

Uh, he issued a statement, uh, defending Israel.

"We denounce the brutal attacks by Hamas in Israel.

Yeah.

Well, and, uh, I thought that this piece of news came out, uh, a mere hour or two before we saw news of, uh, W- WPP Media's appointment of a new, uh, global head of media, um, Laura Ryan, who was the CEO of Orion.

Yeah, the-

Which was, uh, y- yeah, I mean, that's something.

If they're doing hands-on self-service, they're slow to reallocate things.

Yep, absolutely.

Uh, well, the one thing that I, uh, would have loved to have spent some more time thinking about and writing about, uh, the, all the CEO changes.

Uh, you had Roger Lynch going from Condé Nast over to Mattel when the Mattel CEO, Ynon Kreiz, is going over to, uh, now Skydance, the former Paramount and soon to be Paramount/Warner Brothers entity, and a ton of other executive moves, uh, in and around that, uh, those changes as well.

First, Roger Lynch, the CEO of Condé Nast, announces that he is leaving the company to become CEO of Mattel, the toy maker behind Barbie and Hot Wheels, et cetera.

And so as part of that news, we learn that Ynon Kreiz, the CEO of Mattel, is going somewhere else.

And then lo and behold, we learn that he is going to be co-CEO of the combined Paramount Warner Brothers Discovery, which we also learned this week is going to formally launch, formally merge in early October.

And by then, in fact, indeed, by the time you're hearing this podcast, might even have a new name.

We have now a new co-CEO of the combined Paramount Sky Dance.

Yes.

Ynon Kreiz, who I don't know.

He's not, like, a known figure outside of, like, the Polo Lounge crowd, but he's there.

Now, a blockbuster media merger has a new leader.

Paramount CEO David Ellison, he announced he is bringing on Inon Kreiz to help lead a new company that will result from the merger with Warner Brothers Discovery Now Ellison plans to focus on strategy, while Kriez will handle the day-to-day operations.

The Israeli executive is currently head of Mattel, and he is well known for the success of the Barbie movie in 2023.

His roots are in media, though, having led Fox Kids Europe before it was sold to Disney.

Right?

Yeah, also, we learned yesterday, late yesterday, that Paramount Skydance's, uh, David Ellison said former Mattel chief Ynon Kreiz will be co-CEO of the combined companies after completing the pending $110 billion merg- uh, acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery.

Ynon Kreiz, uh, somebody you and I have spoken to-

Yeah, many times

...

And both of them come back to the toy giant Mattel.

Now that the Paramount Warner Brothers deal is officially done, David Ellison announced this week that he's tapped outgoing Mattel leader Ynon Kreiz as his co-CEO.

Meanwhile, Conde Nast CEO Roger Lynch announced he's leaving the media company and taking Kreiz's job as the leader of Mattel.

We'll discuss all that and Hot Wheels and He-Man on today's episode of the Powers That Be.

[laughs]

... land of Barbie, Hot Wheels, Barney, He-Man.

Ynon Kreiz just left Mattel.

He ran the company for several years.

Mm-hmm

... with former Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz.

I don't know if the Y is silent on that.

I very much a- apologize on that.