Paramount on Wednesday named Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz as co-CEO as it races down the home stretch of merging with Warner Bros. Discovery to form a media giant.
Kreiz will join the board and oversee daily operations and the complication fusion of the vast businesses, while Chairman and CEO David Ellison will take the charge on strategy, tech and more, Paramount said.
“The hiring makes sense since they are light on management w Shell out,” a senior TV executive told The Post, referring to former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell.
The hire comes as the Paramount-WBD merger is wrapping up following an antitrust battle with California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The 60-year-old Shell had been slated to be named president of the combined companies before he was forced to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that claimed he leaked confidential information.
Mattel announced Kreiz’s departure Wednesday morning, naming Conde Nast CEO Roger Lynch as his replacement.
“Ynon sees himself as a mogul. He’s not going there to take a division,” a source close to the situation said, adding that Kreiz is leaving Mattel for “money, power and status.”
Insiders said Kreiz could prove to be a robust addition to Ellison’s media conglomerate — which will unite Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros as well as streaming services Paramount+ and HBO Max and the TV networks CBS and CNN.
They cited the Israeli-American businessman’s strong experience in entertainment and global operations. Kreiz joined Mattel in 2018 and steered the Barbie doll and Hot Wheels-maker through the operational challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as President Trump’s tariffs, sources noted.
The exec also previously served as the president of Maker Studios where he negotiated its sale to Disney, and before that, he was CEO of Endemol, a European production company.
Still, Kreiz’s Mattel tenure has been uneven. He started out strong — cutting costs, closing factories and investing in the company intellectual properties — but Mattel’s sales growth for the past several years has been stagnant, analysts noted.
Sales of its hottest brand, Barbie, have been declining since the 2023 blockbuster Warner Brothers’ movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
As Ellison’s Paramount prepares to close its merger in the coming days, the company is expected to make more announcements about top leadership.
Already on Tuesday, Paramount’s streaming chief Cindy Holland announced her exit from the company, and suggested in her remarks that HBO’s Casey Bloys would take over the streaming business once the merger is through.
A federal judge on Wednesday approved Paramount’s recent settlement with California and 11 other state attorneys general, clearing the way for the merger and Kreiz’s appointment.
Earlier this month, California AG agreed to drop his case aimed at blocking the mega-deal.
Under the terms of the settlement, Paramount agreed to a minimum investment of $300 million per year for five years in U.S. film and TV production, amounting to a total of $1.5 billion. The company will also release at least 30 films per year theatrically in the first two years of the deal and 32 films per year in the three years after that.
The “Court finds the proposed consent decree represents a reasonable factual and legal resolution of the dispute,” Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin wrote in her order.
Additional reporting by Pierce Sharpe.
