Oren Katzeff is leaving Tastemade to become president of Condé Nast Entertainment (CNE). Katzeff is replacing Dawn Ostroff who left CNE in July to fill the role of chief content officer at Spotify.
Katzeff, who spent over five years as Tastemade’s global head of programming, will oversee the division’s digital, film and television production slate. Katzeff will report to Bob Sauerberg, CEO of Condé Nast and will be based in New York. He is expected to start on Dec.17.
During his time at Tastemade, Katzeff helped build the media company’s following to over 250 million monthly users across its social network and a combined 3 billion monthly views. He also led the launch of Tastemade’s first 24/7 linear channel on YouTube TV. Additionally, Katzeff served as executive producer on the company’s Audience Network and KCET shows, seven original series on Facebook Watch, and its first feature-length documentary, “Funke,” which made its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival in September.
“We had incredible interest in this role from highly accomplished candidates with backgrounds ranging from traditional television and film to digital pureplays, but Oren stood out because of his unique insight, ability to create addictive content, and innovative operational expertise,” said Sauerberg. “Condé Nast has always discovered and nurtured the next generation of designers, photographers, writers and editors and in Oren, we see the future of our video business.”
Before Tastemade, Katzeff was head of global marketing and audience development at ZEFR (previously MovieClips.com), an online destination for film trailers and clips. During his time at the company, he grew the site’s YouTube subscriber base from 500K to 8 million, making MovieClips the most viewed movie trailer channel across the social platform at the time.
“Condé Nast has a long history of building iconic brands and entertaining its audience with amazing storytelling,” said Katzeff. “I am excited about the opportunity to lead the team at such an inflection point for CNE’s growing video business, and to achieve continued greatness across the digital landscape.”