EVP – Strategy and Portfolio — Streaming Portfolio

The mandate

This streaming portfolio commissions, acquires and licenses content through several genre, brand and territory teams. Each slate has a persuasive rationale, but commitments now overlap in audience purpose, release timing and cash. Some titles depend on global rights that are expensive but lightly used; others create local strength without a clear portfolio pathway. Executives need to reduce and redirect investment before the next greenlight cycle without defaulting to uniform cuts.

The group is creating an EVP – Strategy and Portfolio role to build a rigorous content-allocation system. The executive will own portfolio strategy, market and audience planning, slate scenarios, investment governance, strategic options and performance learning. Creative leaders retain authority for development and editorial judgement, while finance controls approved commitments. The EVP must show how proposed work contributes to the whole service and what opportunity is displaced when it proceeds.

This urgent appointment is distinct from day-to-day commissioning. The board wants a strategic operator who can connect audience need, service proposition, rights, window, territory and cash, then stay involved as evidence changes. The role will sometimes protect a patient creative bet from short-term metrics and sometimes stop a familiar category whose portfolio function has disappeared.

Scope and operating context

Based onsite in Los Angeles, the role influences approximately 625 employees and material partners across the United States and a wider international region. The perimeter covers streaming services, content strategy, genre and territory slates, acquisitions, audience insights, planning and portfolio governance. Close partners include studios, rights and business affairs, production, marketing, product, distribution, finance and data.

Content choices interact across time. A returning series may support weekly habit, a film may create acquisition around one release, an unscripted format can deliver efficient volume, and a local-language title can deepen relevance or travel unexpectedly. Comparing them through one viewing metric would destroy important distinctions; allowing every team to use its preferred metric would prevent choice.

Rights complicate apparent optionality. Global exclusivity, local windows, holdbacks, sequel rights, talent options and delivery dates determine what the portfolio can do. Strategy must use the contractual reality rather than a title name in a planning spreadsheet. Cash timing matters because future obligations can constrain slates before production begins.

First-year agenda

The first two months will define the jobs content performs for each service and audience. The EVP will work with brand, product and creative leaders to identify needs such as acquisition, sustained habit, family co-viewing, cultural relevance, franchise development, advertising reach or churn prevention. These purposes will be specific enough to guide a slate while leaving room for creative surprise.

The team will map existing commitments and available rights against those jobs. The analysis will include development, production, acquisition, marketing, localisation, residual and renewal cash; release timing; territorial availability; target audience; concentration; and alternative monetisation. Known gaps and uncertain assumptions will be visible. Projects will not be labelled strategic without naming the portfolio effect expected.

The EVP will introduce slate scenarios before individual greenlights consume the budget. Scenarios will show which audience needs and territories are covered, concentration under plausible performance outcomes, cash and capacity by period, and options preserved. The board can then decide where it wants deliberate risk rather than discovering the portfolio after a sequence of attractive titles has been approved.

Investment stages will match information maturity. Early development can test voice, rights and feasibility at bounded cost. Attachments and production preparation will require stronger audience and execution evidence. Full commitment will include delivery, marketing and service placement. Stop points will be real; teams will not receive automatic continuation because previous stages created emotional or sunk-cost attachment.

Acquisition and renewal choices will use the same portfolio logic. A licensed title may efficiently fill a customer need, but exclusivity, term, territory and future price can create dependency. The EVP will compare ownership, co-finance, output, first-look and limited-window structures through their cash, control and option value. Competitive urgency will be acknowledged but not allowed to erase downside.

Performance learning will be designed by content purpose. Evaluation may combine reach, completion, new viewing, sustained engagement, cohort retention, advertising contribution, franchise or licensing value and brand effect. The team will use matched cohorts and experiments where appropriate, while stating when causal certainty is unavailable. One title's result should update the relevant thesis, not generate simplistic rules for all content.

Release planning and marketing capacity will be integrated with slate decisions. Too many titles aimed at the same audience or period reduce discoverability and operational focus. The EVP will broker moves across brands and territories, accounting for rights and cultural context. Unused completed content and delayed windows will remain visible as capital choices.

By year-end, the portfolio should carry fewer overlapping commitments, clearer service roles and more deliberate territorial rights. The board should be able to see cash, audience purpose and option value before approving the next allocation, while creative teams understand the strategic question their slate is expected to answer.

Leadership responsibilities

The EVP will chair portfolio reviews and advise the group sponsor on investment choices. They will create an environment in which creative conviction and analytical evidence can challenge each other without pretending to eliminate uncertainty. Decision records will distinguish fact, judgement and assumption, making later learning useful rather than punitive.

They will lead strategists, planners and analysts who can engage with scripts, contracts and audience behaviour, not merely spreadsheets. The function will support creative leaders with clearer choices and then step back from execution ownership. Persistent ambiguity over a project's portfolio role will be escalated before further commitment.

The role will also coordinate with finance on cash and with rights teams on optionality. Sensitive development information must remain controlled, and no portfolio analysis may leak talent, pricing or unannounced title decisions across inappropriate boundaries.

Measures of success

The board will review content cash and commitments by service, audience job, territory, period and stage. It will track concentration, rights utilisation, slate coverage, stopped or redirected investment and the value of options preserved. Uniform budget reduction will not count as strategic reprioritisation.

Performance measures will align to intended purpose and include audience, subscriber, advertising, franchise and residual outcomes where relevant. Governance health includes decision timing, assumption quality, learning adoption, forecast ranges and the reduction of late portfolio conflicts. Team and successor development will also matter.

Candidate profile

Candidates should bring 22–28 years across streaming, film, television, digital media, content finance or portfolio strategy. They must have influenced major slate allocations and personally challenged creative and commercial leaders with evidence. Experience across owned and licensed rights in multiple territories is important.

The board will seek examples of protecting a non-obvious title because its portfolio role was clear, ending an established category after its purpose weakened and changing a rights structure to preserve option value. Candidates should understand development, greenlights, audiences, distribution windows, contracts, cash and service strategy.

The successful EVP will have taste without claiming to be the commissioning authority and analytical depth without worshipping a model. They must make hard choices, communicate them respectfully and keep learning separate from blame when a reasoned bet fails.

Compensation and appointment terms

The expected base range is USD 360,000–480,000, plus annual incentive and long-term participation. Reward will reflect portfolio value, allocation discipline, responsible learning, cross-service collaboration and leadership depth. Final terms will consider comparable slate influence, global rights experience and verified forfeited awards.

Confidentiality

The portfolio remains unnamed because development, slate allocation, rights terms and service strategy are market-sensitive. Detailed materials will follow identity, conflict and confidentiality review. Applicants must not provide unreleased titles, scripts, deal terms, audience records or proprietary greenlight models from another organisation.