The woman who formerly served as Vice President of Global Advertising Sales and Partnerships at Roku, where she oversaw the company’s entire global ad revenue operation, has accepted a similar role at NBCUniversal.
This sees Kristina Shepard take a newly created post within the Advertising and Partnerships division. As such, come January 2025 Shepard will hold the title of EVP/Streaming and Performance Sales and Partnerships.
“NBCUniversal has set the gold-standard for combining premium content with world class innovation against a backdrop of seismic change in the industry,” said Shepard. “What the team has built so far is extraordinary, and as technology continues to influence media and advertising, I cannot wait to be on the front lines of the most exciting growth areas of our business. Together, we have a real opportunity to make television a tangible, performant solution for marketers of all sizes.”
She will report to NBCUniversal President of Advertising and Partnerships Alison Levin.
“As the leader of this newly formed team, Shepard will bring together key sales verticals including performance, small-medium business growth (SMBG) and all major East Coast independent agencies — as well as horizontal partnerships spanning streaming, programmatic, retail media, social and the company’s FAST networks — all under one banner focused on demand diversification and the client-wide adoption of digital partnerships,” NBCUniversal said on Tuesday.
Levin commented, “Kristina has an exceptional track record in building and growing new businesses across programmatic, SMB and digital enterprises. She has seamlessly led a multi-billion-dollar streaming operation and has cultivated extensive client relationships that will elevate NBCUniversal’s position in the Connected TV landscape and expand our aperture in critical emerging workstreams. As the company approaches two of its most influential years in television history, it will be essential for us to continue to diversify our revenue, and Kristina is the perfect person to steer us into that future.”
Before her time at Roku, which she joined at the start of 2017, Shepard was a sales director at mobile ad platform Opera Mediaworks. From July 2010 through November 2012, she was a member of NewsCorp.’s New York Post Sales Training and Development program, which focused on developing sales representatives. This was Shepard’s first professional role following her graduation from Villanova University.
