CBS CEO George Cheeks announced on Tuesday that Allison Brightman and Jeeun Kim, who currently co-lead Business Affairs for CBS Entertainment and Studios, are expanding their duties to oversee News and Stations, Sports, and CBS Media Ventures.
Cheeks laid out their new roles in a memo to employees, writing. “As executive vice presidents and co-heads of Business Affairs for CBS, they will provide leadership, strategy, guidance and support to all our outstanding B.A. teams. Very similar to our centralized structure for Communications, Marketing and Finance, the divisional B.A. teams will report directly to Allison and Jeeun, while continuing to work closely with their respective divisional leaders. Allison and Jeeun have done a fantastic job leading B.A. at both CBS Entertainment and CBS Studios over the past year and a half.”
Brightman will work primarily with the Studios and Media Ventures teams while Jeeun will focus on Entertainment, News and Stations, and Sports.
“A strong Business Affairs operation is a critical driver of our success in a rapidly evolving media world, and I believe this unified structure is a win for all CBS teams. Each division can benefit from the combined expertise and skill sets across all our business strategists and negotiators, regardless of the type of content, talent and platforms they cover. Please join me in congratulating Jeeun and Allison on their newly expanded roles and thanking them for their significant contributions to CBS!” he wrote.
Brightman was named executive vice president of CBS Television Studios in January 2020 and later co-head of Business Affairs for Studios and Entertainment with Kim in October 2020. She first joined CBS in 2006 as vice president of Business Affairs and was promoted to senior vice president in 2012, adding CBS All Access to her portfolio in 2017. Prior to joining CBS, she was senior legal counsel at HBO since 1998.
Kim, who began her career as a lawyer at Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles and Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in New York, was director of Business Affairs (Original Series) for Netflix until October 2020, where she led a team of negotiators handling development, production and license deals for scripted development projects and series. Prior to that, she held several senior roles at various divisions at NBCUniversal, including NBC Network, USA, Syfy, Universal Cable Productions and Universal Television.