Skydance Corp. has set out the leadership structure for the finance organization that will oversee its newly combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery business, placing dedicated finance executives across film, games and experiences, streaming, television, advertising, consumer products and other major operations.

The assignments arrive as the company begins the considerably less cinematic part of a huge entertainment merger: turning two businesses into one organization while maintaining day-to-day operations, making investment choices and reporting results cleanly. Skydance CFO Dennis Cinelli told staff that finance will sit at the center of greenlight decisions, technology spending, partnerships and external reporting.

In that sense, this is not merely a list of back-office appointments. The new chart is a guide to where Skydance expects key commercial decisions to be made—and how it plans to measure them. The combined company has nearly $70 billion in pro-forma annual revenue and about $80 billion in net debt, while aiming for $6 billion in annualized cost savings. Those figures put an enormous amount of pressure on integration planning, financial controls and the choice of which businesses receive investment.

A finance structure built around the company’s businesses

Cinelli, previously Paramount Skydance’s finance chief, will lead the overall finance group. Beneath that central organization, the company has installed business-unit CFOs who will report both to Cinelli and to the heads of their individual business units. This dual-reporting model means finance leaders are intended to be embedded in operating decisions while also following common companywide financial standards.

For audiences and game players, that may sound remote. But an operating-unit CFO is often involved where creative ambitions meet budgets, forecasts and potential returns. A finance leader does not replace a studio head or creative executive; rather, the role supplies the financial analysis used to judge trade-offs, monitor spending and assess whether plans remain viable as circumstances change.

The named business finance leads are:

  • Mark Badagliacca, EVP and CFO of Film, who will also lead the participations and residuals center of excellence and co-lead the production finance center of excellence.
  • Patrick Cavanaugh, EVP and CFO of Distribution, overseeing finance for distribution and affiliates.
  • Nitin Chawla, EVP and CFO of Global Content Sales, responsible for content licensing and home-entertainment finance.
  • Adam Cohn, EVP and CFO of CNN, handling finance for the news operation.
  • Eric Gray, EVP and CFO of TV Studios, overseeing finance for Skydance Television Studio businesses and co-leading production finance.
  • Christine Hong, EVP and CFO of Advertising and head of revenue operations, responsible for ad-business finance and revenue operations across the company.
  • Kedar Nadkarni, EVP, CFO and head of strategy and insights for Consumer Products and Publishing, overseeing consumer products, publishing and DC Comics finance while continuing strategy and operations work under Products and Publishing president Josh Silverman.
  • Ben Paul, EVP and CFO of Games & Experiences, leading finance for the games and experiences operations.
  • Josh Walker, EVP and CFO of Streaming, leading streaming finance.
  • Liz Wright, EVP and CFO of the Skydance TV Segment, leading finance for global television networks.

Ben Paul’s Games & Experiences role is particularly notable for readers following the business side of interactive entertainment. The source material does not detail specific projects, platforms or strategy changes, so there is no basis to read this as an announcement about any particular game. It does show, however, that games and experiences have a designated financial lead within the merged company rather than being folded anonymously into a broader entertainment division.

That distinction matters in a business where games can involve development spending over extended periods, live operational costs, licensing arrangements and potentially different revenue patterns from film or linear TV. The organizational decision does not tell us what Skydance will make, cancel, publish or acquire. It does mean the company has formally defined games and experiences as a business area with direct CFO-level representation.

The corporate team behind the spreadsheet boss fight

Alongside the unit-level appointments, Skydance is centralizing several corporate responsibilities. Kevin Creighton, EVP of Corporate Finance & Treasury, will lead corporate finance, treasury, strategic finance, financial planning and analysis, plus Content Finance and Strategy centers of excellence. He will also oversee investor relations on an interim basis as the company seeks a permanent head of IR.

Treasury is the function responsible for managing a company’s cash, liquidity, funding and related financial obligations. With net debt stated at roughly $80 billion, it is a consequential job in this particular structure. Financial planning and analysis, usually shortened to FP&A, is the discipline of building budgets and forecasts, evaluating performance and helping executives understand the likely consequences of decisions. Neither function dictates creative taste, but both can shape the financial boundaries within which creative and operational teams work.

Fraser Woodford, Warner Bros. Discovery’s EVP of Treasury, will remain through the end of March 2027 to transition work into Creighton’s organization and help identify a successor. The extended transition is one tangible acknowledgment that combining finance operations takes more than issuing a fresh org chart. Processes, information flows and responsibilities need to be handed over while the underlying company continues operating.

The rest of the corporate structure includes Todd Davis as EVP and head of Global Tax; Kathy Gill-Charest as EVP, controller and chief accounting officer; Sandy Pundmann as EVP and chief audit risk officer; and Simon Robinson as EVP and chief business transformation officer.

Robinson will lead an Integration Management Office, the group coordinating integration across the company. In plain language, an integration management office is the team assigned to keep a large merger’s moving parts aligned: milestones, dependencies, decisions, systems and responsibilities. Its stated purpose here is to help bring the companies together smoothly and capture the value expected from the transaction.

Gill-Charest’s controllership role covers accounting, financial reporting and internal controls across divisions. Internal controls are processes designed to make financial information dependable and to reduce the risk of mistakes or improper handling. Pundmann’s audit-and-risk remit overlaps in purpose from another direction, focusing on internal audit and risk as the company strengthens those protections.

Cost savings are a target, not a painless side quest

The company is pursuing $6 billion in annualized cost savings, with expected multiple rounds of layoffs forming part of that effort. “Annualized” describes a projected savings rate measured across a full year once a change is fully in effect; it is not necessarily the same as cash saved immediately when a decision is made.

Financial leadership is central to this process because savings targets require choices about overlapping operations, corporate systems, staffing and spending. The information available does not specify which teams, products or initiatives will be affected, nor does it establish a timetable for every change. It would be wrong to infer those outcomes from the leadership appointments alone.

What can be said is that the structure puts transformation, treasury, planning, accounting, tax and audit under clearly identified executives at the same time business-unit CFOs take responsibility for their areas. That is a setup designed to combine centralized oversight with specialized operating knowledge. Whether it achieves the stated savings target will depend on decisions and execution not yet described.

For employees, the stakes are immediate: Cinelli’s memo recognized the work done during the acquisition and the uncertainty faced by the legacy Warner Bros. Discovery finance organization. For viewers, players and customers, the effects will typically be less direct but can ultimately show up in the range of projects a company supports, the deals it makes and the services it prioritizes.

Production finance, residuals and the business of making entertainment

Two shared “centers of excellence” deserve a closer look. Badagliacca will lead the participations and residuals center of excellence, and he and Gray will co-lead the production finance center of excellence.

Participations generally refer to contractual arrangements through which eligible talent or partners receive a share tied to a project’s financial performance or defined receipts. Residuals are payments connected to subsequent uses of work under applicable arrangements. These are complex obligations in screen entertainment, making a dedicated, centralized expertise group understandable in a company that spans film and television.

Production finance focuses on the financial oversight of productions: budgets, spending, cost forecasts and related reporting. Giving that responsibility a shared structure could help establish common practices across separate studio businesses. But the announcement does not describe any new production rules or creative approval process, so its practical effect should not be overstated.

Content sales, distribution, advertising and streaming each also have their own finance leadership. That arrangement recognizes that a project’s economics can continue well after it is made. Licensing, home entertainment, advertising and distribution are distinct routes through which entertainment reaches audiences and generates revenue. Their inclusion in the structure underscores Skydance’s interest in coordinating the whole chain, from production through monetization.

Data and AI enter the finance brief

Cinelli laid out six guiding pillars for the finance group: getting core reporting and compliance right; establishing aligned financial and strategic plans; closely partnering with operating teams; making decisions with data and AI; telling the company’s financial story to stakeholders and investors; and developing finance talent.

The AI section is appropriately framed as a finance and operations objective, not a promise of artificial intelligence in consumer products. The stated goal is to make data move across the company, automate routine work and give staff more time for analysis. It also calls for blending operating KPIs, financial KPIs and business judgment when evaluating investments and deals.

A KPI, or key performance indicator, is a measurement used to track progress toward an operational or financial objective. The memo’s wording is important: numbers are to be combined with business judgment, not treated as a magical button that settles every decision. The announcement supplies no details about particular tools, models or deployment schedule.

The broad aim is familiar enough: reduce repetitive processes and improve access to relevant information. Yet in a combined company of this scale, the difficult part is likely to be consistent data, well-defined accountability and sound decisions after the dashboards are built. Automation can speed routine work, but it does not erase the need for trustworthy accounting, realistic forecasts and informed operators.

That focus on systems and operating discipline has clear relevance across entertainment and games. Businesses making expensive, long-lead projects need confidence in their forecasts, while businesses reliant on advertising, subscriptions, licensing or product sales need accurate and timely visibility into performance. Skydance’s plan identifies finance as a participant in those decisions rather than a department that arrives only after the credits roll.

For more coverage of how AI is being positioned in consumer technology, see this look at MacPaw’s Eney AI assistant.

What changes now—and what remains unknown

The confirmed change is leadership: Skydance has named the people responsible for core finance functions and for finance within key business units. Bryon Rubin is also leaving his CFO of TV Media post to become COO of Skydance Television.

There is also a clearly stated operating agenda: integrate the businesses, pursue the projected savings, improve the movement and use of data, maintain reporting and compliance standards, and support financial decision-making across the company.

There are still major unknowns. No specific layoff plan, game roadmap, streaming programming decision, film slate decision or technology rollout was provided. The structure explains who will be responsible for the financial side of these areas; it does not reveal the content of every upcoming decision.

Still, in a merger measured in tens of billions of dollars in revenue and debt, assigning those responsibilities is an important early step. Skydance’s finance team has been built for a company that must keep making, licensing, distributing and monetizing entertainment while simultaneously rebuilding the machinery underneath it. The merger may be the headline event, but the next stage is the long campaign of making the numbers, systems and business units work together.