Vice President of Strategy and Distribution

This is a Full Time Job

You will partner closely with senior leadership, station and regional leaders, legal counsel, and cross-functional teams to structure, negotiate, and close transactions that advance Hearst Television's distribution, revenue, and corporate strategy. This is a hands-on leadership role requiring sound commercial judgment, strong analytical skills, and the ability to manage complex projects from initial evaluation through execution. This is an in-person position. The work location is in New York City at Hearst Tower. The role reports to the Vice President, Distribution.

Key Responsibilities

Deal Strategy and Execution
• Lead retransmission consent negotiations with MVPDs and vMVPDs, including financial modeling, deal structuring, term negotiation, and renewal strategy.
• Support network affiliation negotiations and strategic partnerships, coordinating with network counterparts and internal and outside legal counsel.
• Provide strategic and financial support for M&A transactions, including valuation, due diligence, and integration planning.
• Own complex transactions and initiatives from initial analysis and structuring through negotiation, approval, and execution.
• Evaluate deal terms and present recommendations to senior leadership.

Financial Analysis and Business Development
• Build financial models supporting distribution revenue, valuation, deal economics, and negotiation strategy.
• Evaluate new business opportunities, emerging platforms, and industry developments that may advance HTV's distribution and revenue strategy.
• Lead special projects and new business initiatives, including opportunities outside established workstreams.
• Prepare executive presentations, recommendations, and board materials.
• Use approved AI tools to support research, scenario analysis, document comparison, and presentation development.

Collaboration and Leadership
• Partner with station, regional, finance, legal, technology, and operations teams to align strategy with business and operational priorities.
• Represent the Strategy and Distribution team in cross-functional, cross-company, and industry initiatives.
• Lead multiple high-priority and ambiguous workstreams with sound judgment, discretion, and clear communication.

Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree in business, economics, finance, or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
• 15 years of senior-level experience in business development, media distribution, corporate strategy, deal-making, or a related transactional function.
• Demonstrated success structuring, negotiating, and executing complex commercial agreements.
• Strong financial modeling, valuation, and analytical skills.
• Experience working directly with internal and outside legal counsel.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.
• Direct experience with retransmission consent, network affiliation, or MVPD and vMVPD carriage negotiations strongly preferred.
• Experience in television, media, streaming, telecommunications, mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, or integration planning preferred.
• Comfort using approved AI-enabled research, analysis, and productivity tools preferred.
• Related military experience will be considered.

Core Competencies
• Strong commercial judgment and executive presence.
• Clear, persuasive communication with senior leaders and business partners.
• Proactive, entrepreneurial approach to identifying and advancing opportunities.
• Collaborative leadership style and ability to build trust across teams.
• Comfort operating with autonomy in complex and ambiguous situations.
• High integrity and discretion when handling sensitive information.
• Ability to prioritize and manage multiple high-stakes initiatives.