Today marks the debut of our first edition of the Variety 10. Our goal is to focus on a specific field or discipline and highlight the 10 individuals we feel are the most important and consequential leaders of the moment.
It’s entirely appropriate that we begin by looking at the world of brand marketing, where all the rules changed in 2023 when Mattel’s “Barbie” became not just the No. 1 film in the world, but a cultural sensation and a starter of conversations that show no signs of abating. Similarly, Amazon may have begun as an online retailer, but today it is an essential component of the entertainment universe. Meanwhile, you can calculate Hollywood history in terms of BN and AN — i.e., Before Netflix and After Netflix.
Over past decades, Variety has introduced a number of editorial features designed to help readers navigate the new- est and the most impactful players in the fast-moving, complex global entertainment industry. The Variety 10 to Watch series, introduced in 1997, remains the gold standard for talent-spotting in a wide range of disciplines including actors, directors and producers. And for nearly 20 years, we have highlighted the most important industry leaders in philanthropy via our Power series.
We’re excited about this first edition of the Variety 10 and we look forward to continuing our mission to keep our readers up to date on the essential leaders and the most fearless, innovative executives and creatives across the show business landscape.
-
Kofi Amoo-Gottfried
Image Credit: DoorDash Chief marketing officer, DoorDash
Amoo-Gottfried understands clearly where the rubber meets the road in his line of work. “Brands and businesses only matter insofar as they solve problems for people,” he says. This philosophy drove DoorDash’s successful 2024 Super Bowl-centered campaign. By supplying one lucky winner with every item advertised during the game, the brand educated consumers that its delivery service extends beyond just food — to the tune of 8 million entries and exponential growth in brand engagement.
Coming up next is the Summer of DashPass, featuring five weeks of deals across the platform. Amoo-Gottfried insists that there’s no checklist to create a successful campaign; it’s a matter of “really being attuned.” In order to maintain the brand’s truth-seeking values, Amoo-Gottfried shares his annual performance review with his team to normalize the concept that feedback is an opportunity to learn and improve. It offers the added value of highlighting where his focus will be in the coming year.
-
Asad Ayaz
Image Credit: Hiromichi MATONO hiromichimatono Chief brand officer, The Walt Disney Company, and president, marketing, Walt Disney Studios and Disney+
As the marketing chief overseeing the Mouse House’s iconic family of brands (including Disney, Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm and its global portfolio of theme parks), Ayaz has been busy in recent months plotting and executing campaigns for Disney’s 100th anniversary, the integration of Hulu on Disney+, various movies (“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “Deadpool & Wolverine”) and the annual D23 fan events in August.
“Everyone is competing for attention, and consumer behavior has changed significantly in the last three years,” observes the 19-year Disney vet. “People are inundated with messaging from streaming, films, games and short form content, and it’s harder to cut through.”
A lifelong fan of pop culture, he collects everything from vintage comic books and unique toys available only from artists at San Diego Comic-Con and places like Tokyo Disneyland to Funko Pop figures from virtually every project he’s worked on. “In fact, I just ordered my Ennui Funko figure [from “Inside Out 2”],” Ayaz says.
-
Tim Ellis
Image Credit: The NFL CMO and exec VP, NFL
Ellis’ responsibilities mainly involve careful maintenance of the NFL’s core strategies and objectives, but he still shoots for the moon with his campaigns. “It doesn’t pay off to be safe or to be too overly cautious,” says Ellis. His ongoing initiative to sustain the brand’s core supporters while converting casual viewers into avid fans has required a multifaceted approach. Promoting the individual players, teams — and even some of their associated wives and girlfriends — has helped broaden perceptions about the NFL and bring in a bigger audience. He acknowledges that the unexpected boost from Taylor Swift fans certainly helped them achieve those goals.
The numbers evidence his success: The 2024 Super Bowl boasted the highest total unduplicated audience in history, with 202.4 million people tuning in for at least part of the game across all networks.
“We bring people together,” says Ellis, “and that can be as a collective force for good, or as an escape to enjoy a great game.”
-
Sue Kroll
Image Credit: Amazon MGM Studios Head of global marketing, Amazon MGM Studios
Examining the success of Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn,” which became one of Prime Video’s top 10 worldwide film debuts, Kroll says that their campaign, buoyed by Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s disco-pop hit “Murder on the Dancefloor,” lit up social media by “giving audiences permission to have fun and to revel in how audacious the movie is.” Kroll takes a tailor-made approach to promoting each project. For the TV series “Fallout,” which is based on the eponymous video game, she says that the campaign “incorporated winks and acknowledgements for fans to let them know we are taking care of their vision for the series,” while also punching up drama, adventure and black comedy for broader appeal. Since 2022, Kroll has handled global marketing for TV series and films at Amazon, after almost two decades at Warner Bros. Pictures.
“There’s a creative solution to every problem,” says Kroll. “Be curious and ask questions, look at things from every angle, take chances, and work, work, work.”
-
Marian Lee
Image Credit: STEPHANIE_GIRARD CMO, Netflix
Lee meshes old and new media in campaigns, embracing the efficacy of legacy media platforms such as outdoor billboards to drive consumer conversation. For example, two large billboards for “Leo” connected with rope-like lizard tongues, and “Extraction 2” signage was rigged to appear to sweat. Meanwhile, keeping up with digital natives requires “chasing the heat because every day there is a new app or new platform that pops up, and we’re almost duty-bound to go where the audiences are spending time,” she says. “We do a lot of exploration.”
Lee joined Netflix in 2021, and became CMO in 2022. She previously worked at Spotify as VP and head of music, PwC as a management consultant and at various fashion and entertainment brands. She’s now responsible for marketing globally with 40 teams located around the world. “It’s not just about the person who chuck- les when they see those billboards,” she says. “Ultimately, we want them to be talking about them, sharing photos with their friends.”
-
Lisa McKnight
Image Credit: Mattel Exec VP and chief brand officer, Mattel
McKnight has an impressive Barbie collection that encompasses everything from Malibu Barbies — like the one she played with as a kid — to a one-of-a-kind doll made in her likeness to mark her 20th anniversary with Mattel. It was an appropriate way to honor McKnight, who has led the toymaker’s successful efforts to reconceptualize the fashion doll for modern sensibilities, expanding ethnic and body diversity and amping up Barbie’s social media presence, giving her a first-person blog and Instagram channel to make her more relatable to kids and, more important, parents.
“Kids still loved Barbie, but moms that had played with Barbie didn’t see her as a positive role model,” says McKnight, who joined Mattel in 1998. Her biggest single campaign was last year’s launch of the $1.446 billion dollar hit “Barbie” movie, which involved 165 brand partnerships. Now, she’s helping position other Mattel IP adaptations, including a “Masters of the Universe” movie due in 2026.
-
Michael Moses
Image Credit: Universal Pictures CMO, Universal Pictures
Riding high from marketing profit-gusher “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and Oscar best picture winner “Oppenheimer,” Moses says a constant challenge is connecting to the elusive younger demographics. His remedies include unconventional initiatives, such as the deadly dancing “M3gan” doll video and getting “Oppenheimer” director Christopher Nolan on TikTok for the first time. “It’s trying to feel increasingly like content rather than advertising,” Moses says. He markets studio-distributed films including those from the Steven Spielberg-led Amblin Partners, genre shingle Blumhouse, animation power Illumination Entertainment and Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Prods.
After working at Disney and Warner Bros., Moses joined Universal’s publicity team in 2000, becoming co-president of marketing in 2010. As major studios face a decline in tentpole movies that can pull broad audiences, Moses recognizes that the rest of their slate requires campaigns to focus on sharply defined demographics. “Increasingly, movies are kind of a tribal experience,” he says.
-
Patrizio Spagnoletto
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery Global CMO, direct-to-consumer, Warner Bros. Discovery
In his youth, Spagnoletto moved around the world with his family, following his father, who worked for oil and engineering companies that built large-scale projects like highways and ports. “In indirect but very visible ways, it helps me in my current role because it is global to not just appreciate but respect different cultures and the fact that people and businesses can shop very differently depending on where they are,” says the Moroccan-born exec, who lived in Italy, Kenya, Portugal and Iran before coming to the U.S. for college. In the past year, he’s been spearheading the worldwide rollout of the Max platform, most recently in the EMEA.
Now he’s focused on what he promises is a first-in-kind global campaign for Season 2 of “House of the Dragon,” premiering on June 16. “I won’t spill the beans, but if you’re in New York, I would just say, ‘Look up,’” he teases.
-
Jane Wakely
Image Credit: PepsiCo Exec VP, chief CMO and chief growth officer, international foods, PepsiCo
Prior to joining PepsiCo in 2021, Wakely served as lead chief marketing officer at Mars, where, over a 20-year tenure, she learned how to effectively leverage consumer familiarity with iconic brands to forge unforgettable — and global — bonds with their products. Having overseen teams that earned 180 Cannes Lions, 120 One Show awards and more than 100 Effies, her business success is obvious. Yet rather than measuring accolades by the number of trophies collected, Wakely reiterates that she takes a “human-centric” approach to the growth.
“What we look at is passion points, and we use those passion points to drive performance of our brands, like Pepsi, Lay’s and Gatorade,” she told Business Insider in 2023. “But we are also looking to drive a positive impact for the planet and people.”
As much a consumer as a proponent of the brands she’s worked on, Wakely told Bustle in 2023 that you can find many of them in her makeup bag and kitchen cabinets. “Once you have a brand in your heart and soul as a marketer, it never leaves you,” she says.
-
Gabrielle Wesley
Image Credit: Mars Wrigley North America CMO, Mars Wrigley North America
Overseeing brands including M&Ms, Snickers and Skittles, Wesley believes that “acting with a pioneering mindset” is essential to ensuring that these products retain their relevance. “I always find improvements and get better,” she says. “Accelerate and amplify success. Fail, learn and come back stronger.”
Recently, she oversaw the successful M&Ms “Almost Champions” campaign around this year’s Super Bowl. For Halloween 2023, she led the M&Ms Rescue Squad program, where the company delivered candy to homes that were dealing with more trick or treaters than expected. Next up is Mars Wrigley’s Halfway to Halloween summer event to introduce new flavors like M&M’S Milk Chocolate Pumpkin Pie, while reimagining traditional holiday candy for year-round consumption.
