Warner Bros. Pictures has appointed Michelle Slavich executive vice president of global publicity and strategy, the company said Thursday.
Slavich joins the studio from her post at Google as a communications head for YouTube, where she handled entertainment and music PR initiatives and corporate and creator matters.
“Michelle is a well-respected publicity executive with an impressive track record of leadership, innovation and strategic vision,” said Blair Rich, Warner Bros. president of worldwide marketing and home entertainment, to whom Slavich will report.
In her new role, Slavich will handle domestic and international PR across the studio and its imprint New Line Cinema. She’ll also work with marketing group management on campaign design and strategy for both individual titles and franchises like the DC Films superhero universe.
Slavich spent five years with Google and, in the last two years, her team launched over 50 publicity campaigns for the company’s YouTube Original series and movies. Slavich was also responsible for the launch of campaigns for YouTube TV and YouTube Red.
Prior to that she served as a VP at Universal Studios Home Entertainment, supervising over 200 publicity campaigns for Universal Pictures, Focus Features and NBC She began her career at the Shoah Foundation, Steven Spielberg’s nonprofit organization dedicated to the recording of Holocaust survivor testimonies for educational use.
Read a memo sent to staff from Rich about Slavich’s hire, obtained by TheWrap:
I am very pleased to announce that we have hired Michelle Slavich to join our team at Warner Bros. as Executive Vice President, Global Publicity and Strategy. Reporting to me, Michelle will lead our Domestic and International publicity teams, serving as our lead publicity strategist on all our films.
Michelle is a well-respected publicity executive with an impressive track record of leadership, innovation and strategic vision. As we tackle the constantly evolving landscape of film publicity, she’s a great choice to lead the team and further our already-excellent publicity operations. She joins us from Google, where she most recently served as Head of Entertainment Communications for YouTube, overseeing the platform’s entertainment and music PR initiatives, as well as corporate and creator communications. Before that, Slavich served as Vice President, Publicity at Universal Studios Home Entertainment (USHE), and held executive positions at Rogers & Associates, PeopleSupport Inc., and Dreamworks/Amblin Entertainment.
Lance Volland will continue to head up our International publicity efforts working with the territories, while continuing to develop strategy with the teams here in Burbank; he will continue to work closely with Lynne Frank on publicity strategy and the intersection of these efforts with our larger International Marketing plans that are led by Lynne. The domestic publicity team will report directly to Michelle as well.
Michelle possesses incredible expertise and experience in publicity and strategy and I am very excited to have her join our team – and I know that once you’ve had a chance to meet and work with her, you will agree how lucky we are to have her join our company.
I look forward to introducing you to Michelle when she starts on May 29.
Thank you,
Blair