6 WarnerMedia Executives Join Jason Kilar, Ann Sarnoff and Andy Forssell in Exiting Company

Six more WarnerMedia executives are leaving the company upon the completion of its merger with Discovery, which could take place as early as next week, if not Friday.

In addition to the Tuesday news that CEO Jason Kilar, studios and networks group CEO and chair Ann Sarnoff and HBO Max head Andy Forssell would be exiting, a WarnerMedia spokesperson announced a complete list of other executives exiting, including:

• Jennifer Biry – Chief Financial Officer

• Jim Cummings – EVP, Chief Human Resources Officer

• Tony Goncalves – EVP, Chief Revenue Officer

• Christy Haubegger – EVP, Communications and Chief Inclusion Officer

• Jim Meza – EVP, General Counsel, WarnerMedia

• Richard Tom – Chief Technology Officer

Despite the spring cleaning, an individual with knowledge confirms to TheWrap that Gerhard Zeiler, president of WarnerMedia International, will remain with the new company.

Warner Bros. Discovery will be led by Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who TheWrap previously reported would be expected to kick off his tenure with a clean sweep of the top executives, replaced by his own execs.

It was previously reported as Sarnoff was said to be exiting that her role in particular would not be duplicated, and it’s expected that the new company would reduce some of the redundancies in the executive ranks and silos throughout the company.

Kilar was installed as CEO under AT&T in April 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and ahead of the launch of HBO Max. Sarnoff became the first female chair and CEO of a major studio when she joined Warner Bros. in 2019 and after taking the lead of WarnerMedia’s studios group has been responsible for guiding all of WarnerMedia’s entertainment-focused teams. Forssell joined the HBO Max operating unit within WarnerMedia in 2019 reporting directly to Kilar, and he was responsible for its ad-supported rollout and its rollout in international markets beginning last summer.