Skydance Communications Team Names 4 Leaders as 7 Execs Exit After Paramount-WBD Merger

The Skydance communications team now has a defined shape, about three weeks after the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger closed. Chief communications officer Melissa Zukerman laid it out in a Friday memo to staff. It names four senior lieutenants, adds a new function aimed at bypassing traditional media, and confirms that seven communications executives from the two legacy companies are leaving.

Who is in, and who is out

Zukerman’s top four are Laura Watson, Shannon Buck, Virginia Fout and Deborah Marcus. Watson, an EVP, will lead corporate, executive and strategic communications. She was Zukerman’s deputy at Paramount and had arrived from Warner Bros. Discovery in mid-2025. Buck, also an EVP, takes corporate communications and media relations. She previously headed communications for Paramount+, a role that effectively disappeared when Paramount’s and WBD’s streaming businesses were combined under HBO and HBO Max leaders Casey Bloys and JB Perrette, according to Deadline. Fout becomes head of global and executive events after running her own events company, V Productions. Marcus, an SVP who joined Paramount in August 2025, will lead corporate social responsibility.

The exits fall heavily on the Warner Bros. Discovery side. Leaving are Adrienne O’Hara, WBD’s chief communications and public affairs officer, along with Arielle Falkowitz, Megan Klein, Joe Libonati, Heather Wagoner and Dennis Williams. Paramount’s Karen Shosfy is also departing. Deadline noted that Libonati had worked closely with Zukerman throughout the merger process. The two outlets differ slightly on titles. Variety lists Wagoner as a WBD executive, while Deadline lists her under Skydance. Either way, she is among those leaving.

The lineup suggests a structure built mainly on the Paramount model. Three of the four named leaders came from Paramount, and Fout is an outside hire. Deadline described the new structure as employing the Paramount approach.

A “direct to market” bet

The most notable change is a new “direct to market” function. Zukerman said it will focus on expanding executive storytelling across the company’s owned-and-operated platforms and finding new channels and formats. In her words, it will give the company “more ways to tell our own story, in our own voice, directly to the people we want to reach.”

That reflects a wider shift in corporate communications, as companies with large audiences of their own lean less on intermediaries. For a media group that owns CBS and a combined streaming business, the pitch is easy to see. The company controls many of the platforms it would otherwise be trying to get onto.

Zukerman also plans to hire “dedicated leaders” for financial communications and for product and technology communications. She tied the latter to areas she expects to grow in importance, including AI tools for filmmakers and creatives and advertising sales.

Tying comms to company strategy

The memo links the department’s mission to the priorities set by co-CEOs David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz. Those are to establish Skydance as the premier Hollywood content engine, to accelerate its integrated direct-to-consumer platform, and to optimize its profitable linear television portfolio, anchored by CBS. Zukerman added that the company wants to be the most technologically capable media company while keeping “human creativity at the heart of great storytelling.”

She also said the team’s job includes telling the stories of the company’s challenges as well as its triumphs, and that it should “show, not tell.” Those are notable words in a memo that also delivers a round of layoffs-style departures.

The communications reshuffle is one of several leadership announcements as the combined company settles its org chart. Deadline pointed to similar rosters from the company’s sports chief and from JB Perrette’s TV and direct-to-consumer group. The remaining open question for the Skydance communications team is who will fill the new financial and technology communications posts.

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File photo: Paramount Skydance One Astor Plaza.jpg by Nielsoncaetanosalmeron, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.