Viacom International Media Networks Names Ron Johnson Executive Vice President Of Consumer Products VIMN - March 2013

 
Mark Kingston Promoted to General Manager and Senior Vice President for Europe,
Middle East, Africa & Australia, VIMN Consumer Products

Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN), a division of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA, VIAB), today announced that Ron Johnson has been appointed Executive Vice President, Nickelodeon and Viacom Consumer Products (NVCP) for VIMN. Effective 1 April 2013, Johnson will lead all of Viacom's international consumer products operations. He will be based in New York and will report to Pierluigi Gazzolo, Chief Operating Officer, VIMN.

"We're thrilled to have Ron take on this leadership role in overseeing VIMN's consumer products business," Gazzolo said. "He possesses first-hand knowledge of our global CP operation, as well as extensive experience across global retail partnerships, holistic franchise management and product innovation. Ron's expertise in global retail will prove invaluable in his new position, as we deepen and form new partnerships with retailers and licensees around the world and build on the strong momentum that we are seeing in our CP business."

The company also announced that Mark Kingston has been promoted to General Manager and Senior Vice President for NVCP Europe, Middle East, Africa & Australia, VIMN, and will oversee VIMN's consumer products operations in these key markets. Kingston will report to Johnson in addition to Dave Lynn, Managing Director & Executive Vice President, UK, Australia & Eastern Europe & International Content Distribution, VIMN and remain based in London.

"We're also excited about the newly expanded position that Mark will be taking on, as it further reinforces the strength of our regionally led consumer products organization," continued Gazzolo. "Mark has already been spearheading our pan-European retail efforts and CP operations in the UK, Russia, and Australia to great success. By extending his purview to include all pan-European CP deal-making, which also includes Middle East, North Africa and Australia, we are streamlining efficiencies to better position us to meet the demands of critical, high growth markets and create more compelling and valuable opportunities for partners."

About Ron Johnson Johnson first joined Viacom in 2010 as Senior Vice President, Wal-Mart Retail Development for Nickelodeon Viacom Consumer Products (NVCP), managing the development of the worldwide Nickelodeon retail business at Wal-Mart around all NVCP properties. Johnson’s role quickly expanded to leading NVCP’s global retail business for all retail accounts as well as managing all e-commerce and seasonal licensing. He has established strong relationships with key U.S. retailers, including Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon and Toys R Us, and executed several successful retail marketing partnerships around key franchises such as Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants. He also led the strategy and implementation of a new retail analytics organization to enable real-time data analysis, and opened up new classes and channels of trade for Nickelodeon consumer products. Johnson is currently based in Bentonville, Arkansas, so will relocate to New York.

In his new role, Johnson will lead VIMN’s world class consumer product business across retail, operations, creative development, licensing, recreation, promotions and marketing. Johnson will continue to drive Nickelodeon and Viacom Consumer Products’ strategic vision focused on portfolio diversification; key partner development; innovative marketing solutions around hit properties, and ensuring the highest quality product offering.

Prior to joining Nickelodeon, Johnson was Vice President/General Manager of the Global Walmart Team at Disney, where he was responsible for implementing Disney’s retail strategies at Walmart subsidiaries in more than 15 countries worldwide. In this role, he opened up supplier deals with ASDA in the U.K. and Wal-Mart Mexico. Before Disney, Johnson was President and CEO of Classic Foods, LLP. He began his career at Procter & Gamble Distributing Company. Johnson graduated with a B.S. in Business and Mathematics from the Mississippi University for Women and a M.B.A. with an emphasis in Marketing from the University of Tennessee.

About Mark Kingston Mark Kingston is currently Vice President, UK, Australia, Russia, Israel, Central & Eastern Europe Retail Sales and Trade Marketing, for NVCP. Based in London, Kingston is responsible for licensing programs in these key markets as well as NVCP’s Pan-European retail strategy working in close collaboration with local VIMN channel operations and category heads. Under Kingston’s leadership the team has achieved double-digit growth in overall consumer products through more focused licensing partnerships and development of key account relationships. Recently, Kingston and his team coordinated the UK and Australia consumer products launch of Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which is already achieving key milestones in both markets such as hitting the top five in the action figure category.

As part of his newly expanded role, Kingston will add oversight of VIMN consumer products in the rest of Europe as well as the Middle East and Africa to his current remit. This move will more deeply align consumer products teams to drive greater efficiencies, and value for local, pan-regional and global partners.

Kingston joined NVCP in 2011 from The Walt Disney Company, where he served as Business Unit Director, responsible for all aspects of the licensed and vertical business at UK supermarket chain, Tesco while managing a team of 15 sales, marketing, retail planning & product development professionals. Prior to The Walt Disney Company, Kingston worked at BBC Worldwide, and began his career at Masterfoods, a division of Mars UK. Kingston graduated from the University of Leeds with a BSc Hons degree in Animal Science.