René Santaella is the senior vice president of operations & business planning at Sony Pictures Television (SPT) where he oversees all direct and programmatic ad sales, as well as revenue operations for Sony Crackle and Sony Crackle Plus Network which includes O&O’s Sony Crackle, PlayStation Vue, Funimation, Mobile Games and other premium brands.
Previously, Santaella served as senior vice president of global ad strategy and operations, Digital Networks for SPT overseeing programmatic, ad platform and audience measurement initiatives for Sony Crackle and PlayStation. Prior to that, Santaella was vice president and general sales manager for SPT, where he was responsible for ad solutions and operations, trade marketing and corporate synergy across Sony Crackle and PlayStation. Sony Crackle has forged a number of industry groundbreaking ad sales initiatives under his leadership, including the first interactive video ad unit on all screens with Innovid, the first multi-platform audience measurement system with comScore, the first viewability verification on all platforms with Moat and the first ever addressable targeting solution across all platforms and multiple brand applications with Nielsen Marketing Cloud.
Prior to SPT, he was director of ad sales marketing for Disney Interactive, leading digital and multiplatform advertising and marketing solutions that spanned online, mobile, social, television, radio and print and across multiple business units with Disney Parks & Resorts, Hollywood Records and Walt Disney Pictures. Before his time at Disney, Santaella spent several years as senior vice president and chief operating officer of Fireworks Enterprises, a start-up entertainment marketing agency representing clients such as eBay, Mercedes Benz and Visa. During his tenure, he led client development of entertainment related promotions and marketing alliances while also managing day-to-day business operations.
Earlier in his career, Santaella worked for Sony Pictures Entertainment in the Global Strategic Marketing group building third party theatrical film promotions; as well as at PPW Inc, where he produced marketing events for the leaders in the sports and entertainment industries.
Throughout his career, Santaella’s work has been recognized by some of the industry’s most respected organizations and earning him recognition in Broadcasting & Cable and awards from IAB MIXX, Cynopsis and Webby.
Santaella holds a Master of Business Administration from the Anderson School at UCLA and a Bachelor’s degree from UCLA.
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