Condé Nast Entertainment Pulls Another Top Hire From Walt Disney

January 22, 2021

Condé Nast Entertainment’s new president Agnes Chu has brought over one of her former colleagues from The Walt Disney Co. in a shake-up of the division.

As part of the reshuffle, Jennifer Jones has been named head of global business affairs and operations. She joins from Disney, where she was vice president of business affairs for Disney+. There she worked alongside Chu, who until August was its senior vice president of content, commissioning a portfolio of premium feature, scripted, unscripted and animated entertainment exclusively for the service.

Prior to Disney, Jones was a senior legal executive for Marvel Entertainment and began her law career at Munger, Tolles & Olson, focusing on entertainment contract disputes.

Elsewhere, Teal Newland has been promoted to senior vice president of digital video for English language; Ezzie Chidi-Ofong senior vice president of digital video for local language; Cecile Murias senior vice president of global physical production, and Reggie Williams senior vice president of global consumer revenue video.

Additionally, Christiane Mack was previously revealed as chief content operations officer in a dual report role to Chu and new global chief content officer Anna Wintour.

Of her new team, Chu said: “We are confronting the challenges of this past year with leadership and vision, and with this new team, we are positioned to create more of the exceptional, award-winning content our audience expects. Jenn brings entrepreneurial depth and a global fluency in strategic business affairs, and Teal, Ezzie, Cecile and Reggie’s proven commitment to excellence at CNE will drive our innovation, pushing our content forward to make lasting cultural impact.”

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She replaced Oren Katzeff as president of the division in the summer. At the time, the company said he was transitioning into a new role, but it’s understood that he has since left.

He hit headlines during the summer over offensive tweets unearthed from 2014, including ones that are sexually suggestive. “There either is a cat on my flight, meowing repeatedly a few rows behind me, or a REALLY horny woman,” he wrote in a now deleted 2014 tweet. He also made comments about a Mexican waiter. Shortly after, Chu was named the new president of the division.

Under his watch, the division came under fire last year following allegations that it did not fairly remunerate journalists of color for their participation in the popular Test Kitchen video series. After failed negotiations, several journalists, including Priya Krishna, Rick Martinez and Sohla El-Waylly, said they would be stepping back from the Test Kitchen.

Since his departure, it has faced criticism over its treatment of contractors working on its podcasts, especially “In Vogue: The 1990s,” which chronicles the collision of fashion and culture in the ’90s.

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