John Lee Named First NBCUniversal Chief Data Officer

In the US, media and entertainment giant NBCUniversal has hired long-time Merkle exec John Lee for its newly created position of Chief Data Officer, tasked with leading a new enterprise-wide Consumer Identity and Data Strategy unit.

Comcast-subsidiary NBCUniversal owns and operates a portfolio of news and entertainment TV networks, a motion picture company, television production operations, a TV stations group, theme parks, and an ad-supported streaming service. Lee (pictured) joins after more than thirteen years at data-driven marketing agency Merkle, where he latterly served as Corporate Chief Strategy Officer, before which, he was President of identity resolution and data platform called Merkury, and Chief Product and Data Officer. Earlier, he worked for dentsu as President of the firm's people-based insights, planning, activation and measurement platform M1 Global.

In his new role, Lee will lead a centralized data unit tasked with developing and implementing the company's enterprise-wide consumer identity and data strategy. Reporting into President & Chief Business Officer Krishan Bhatia, Lee and his team will develop the company's first-party data strategy and create data-driven partnerships to support advertising, marketing, consumer experience and analytics use cases across the group's portfolio.

Commenting on the appointment, Bhatia said: 'We're thrilled to welcome John into the family, because he understands how to build a future where data plays a central role in all our products and services. John will help us set a new standard for consumer identity and data management as well as deliver on our promise of creating a unified platform that drives our business and our partners' businesses forward, while giving our audiences the best experiences on the screen, in our parks and at the movies.'

Web site: www.nbcuniversal.com .