CBS’ EVP Communications Kelli Raftery To Depart After More Than 20 Years At the Company

Nellie Andreeva
·4 min read

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Kelli Raftery, EVP Communications for CBS, is leaving the company after more than two decades. Her last day will be April 6.

Raftery’s decision to depart comes days after her longtime boss and mentor, CBS’ EVP and Chief Communications Officer Dana McClintock, announced that he would be exiting in the summer after 27 years. They are among a number of CBS veterans who have opted to leave following the completion of the CBS-Viacom merger in December.

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“It was important to me to be here for the early innings of the merger, but I realized over the past few months that this is the right time for me to start writing my next chapter,” Raftery said in a note to her colleagues this morning announcing her pending departure. “I will say my final CBS goodbye on a day that feels perfectly fitting for me… in the crowd at the NCAA Men’s National Basketball Championship on Monday, April 6, with many of my co-workers, friends and family in attendance and my dad on the game call. There’s really no other way I would want it!”

Raftery was most recently based in New York, working in the corporate communications field, first as SVP and then as EVP, a position, she was promoted to in 2018.

Before that, she was based in Los Angeles, where she served as VP, CBS Entertainment, overseeing the CBS Daytime publicity group, while also serving as lead publicist for The Talk. Previously, she served as Director, Communications at Sports Illustrated Group.

“I have been fortunate to work across so many of our businesses – sports, entertainment, syndication, news and corporate – and I am extremely proud to have been a part of something very special for so many years,” Raftery wrote. “I will always cherish my time and memories here.”

Here is the full text of her memo:

CBS has been my home away from home for more than 20 years, and the amazing people here have been my extended family… even my real family in one case! I have been fortunate to work across so many of our businesses – sports, entertainment, syndication, news and corporate – and I am extremely proud to have been a part of something very special for so many years. I will always cherish my time and memories here.

It was important to me to be here for the early innings of the merger, but I realized over the past few months that this is the right time for me to start writing my next chapter. I will say my final CBS goodbye on a day that feels perfectly fitting for me… in the crowd at the NCAA Men’s National Basketball Championship on Monday, April 6, with many of my co-workers, friends and family in attendance and my dad on the game call. There’s really no other way I would want it!

Unfortunately (or fortunately), the list of all of the colleagues and reporters I would like to thank is too long for this note, but I want you to know that I’ll carry the things I’ve learned from all of you with me forever.

To my CBS communications colleagues past and present, I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to be in the trenches with every day. I know that you’re all destined to continue doing great things.

I am also extremely grateful that I have been able to work with and learn from the best bosses in the business, as well as the many talented executives in leadership across CBS who make everyone around them better.

It has been a joy to work with the people of CBS, and the lifelong friendships I have formed during my two decades here are the greatest gift of all. I will always look back on my time at the company with immense pride, happiness and incredible memories of smart, passionate and hardworking people.

As the wisest (and funniest) man I know says often this time of year…

With a Kiss,

Kelli Raf

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