Discovery recruits Patrizio Spagnoletto

Discovery has appointed Patrizio “Pato” Spagnoletto as global chief marketing officer, Discovery direct-to-consumer.

He will be based in Los Angeles and report to the company’s president and CEO of Discovery International JB Perrette in his role helping to operationalise Discovery’s D2C activities.

In this newly created position, Spagnoletto will play a key leadership role in establishing discovery+ as a must-have service for consumers around the world. He will oversee a unified global D2C marketing organisation that will drive adoption of discovery+ across North America, EMEA, LATAM and APAC and have broad responsibilities for subscriber acquisition, retention and growth, media and analytics, brand awareness, marketing creative development and strategy, and consumer insights. In addition to the unified D2C focused marketing team he will oversee, Spagnoletto will also work in close partnership with US networks and local international marketing teams to leverage all of Discovery’s assets to drive discovery+.

Commenting on the appointment, Perrette said: “We are thrilled that Pato is joining our team in this new global D2C leadership role at a transformational moment for our company.

“Pato helped Hulu more than triple subscribers during his tenure and has experience with direct-to-consumer entertainment, sports and linear channels, which is a perfect match for our different discovery+ offerings around the world. We have enormous ambition for discovery+ and believe Pato is uniquely qualified to help us scale globally”.

Spagnoletto added: “I could not be more excited to join such an incredible company at such an exhilarating time
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“I have always admired Discovery and look forward to joining such a talented team and contributing to the next chapter of their storied success”.

Spagnoletto most recently served as head of marketing for Hulu, where he oversaw the company’s marketing efforts and was critical in its subscriber growth across both the SVOD and live TV businesses. He led a team of marketers responsible for creating and executing campaigns and events across brand, creative, subscriber growth, and consumer research. Prior to Hulu, he served in leadership positions at Steelhouse, Farmers Insurance and Yahoo!. Broadbandtvnews