ViacomCBS Names Former Amazon, Pandora Executive Naveen Chopra As CFO

Jill Goldsmith
·3 min read

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ViacomCBS has named Amazon exec Naveen Chopra as chief financial officer, effective August 10,, succeeding Christina Spade, who will transition into an advisory role after the company’s second quarter earnings call.

Chopra joins ViacomCBS from Amazon where was CFO of Devices and Services, the division housing the giant’s fast growing and most strategic consumer businesses, including Alexa, Echo, Fire TV, Ring, Kindle and the Amazon Appstore. Chopra will oversee ViacomCBS’s financial operations, including treasury, tax, accounting, investor relations, information security and real estate, as well as global corporate development and strategy. He’ll report to Bob Bakish, President and CEO of ViacomCBS.

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“Naveen is a talented leader who combines financial, strategic and operational expertise with hands-on experience growing innovative, consumer-focused businesses across the media and tech sector,” said Bakish. “His experience scaling and driving the financial strategies for growth businesses – including free ad-supported and subscription streaming, as well as with digital devices and services – will be instrumental as we continue to unlock the value of our assets.”

Bakish added, “I am grateful to Chris for her many contributions to ViacomCBS, including her two decades at Showtime and CBS and the pivotal role she played in the integration of CBS and Viacom. I want to extend my deepest thanks to her for her leadership and counsel, and for helping to ensure a smooth transition.”

“I am thrilled to join ViacomCBS at this exciting time,” said Chopra. “Since its merger, the company has gained strong momentum amidst a rapidly evolving landscape by leveraging its subscription and advertising businesses, diverse distribution channels, formidable library and strong content pipeline. I look forward to working closely with Bob and the team to apply my experiences across consumer products and services, streaming and digital advertising to help write the next chapter of this amazing company.”

Previously, Chopra spent two years as chief financial officer of audio streaming service Pandora, where he led a significant turnaround of the company and served, for a period, as Interim CEO. During his tenure, the company launched its Pandora Premium subscription service, which grew subscription revenue by more than 60 percent and restored growth in its core advertising businesses. Chopra was also responsible for music licensing and business development. Prior to that, he served in a number of senior positions at TiVo, including four years as CFO and CEO, leading a restructuring that culminated in its 2016 sale to Rovi.

Chopra was on the board of directors at Vonage Holdings, a big cloud-communications company.

Earlier in his career, Chopra held business development roles at Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and early-stage venture-backed companies including WebTV and Ofoto.

Spade was previously CFO of CBS. She oversaw the integration of the CBS and Viacom financial organizations and has helped lead the through the COVID-19 pandemic, strengthening its balance sheet to ensure it’s well positioned to continue navigating the current economic environment.

Previously, she served for six years as Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Strategy for Showtime Networks, where she stewarded the implementation of key financial operational and reporting systems and helped scale Showtime’s streaming platform at its launch in July 2015.

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