Kristen Finney

Executive Vice President, Content Sales Development & Strategy
The Walt Disney Company

Kristen Finney

Executive Vice President, Content Sales Development & Strategy
The Walt Disney Company

Biography

As Executive Vice President of EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) for Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution (TCFTVD), Kristen Finney is responsible for overseeing all content licensing deals across Pay, Basic and Free TV and Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) in the EMEA region.

Finney leads an international team of sales executives in strategically distributing all feature films and television series from Twentieth Century Fox Film, Twentieth Century Fox Television, Fox 21 Television Studios, FX Productions, Fox 2000, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox Animation and other 21st Century Fox companies. Together, Finney and her team are responsible for licensing content to more than 250 clients in over 140 territories.

In 2016, Finney was promoted to Executive Vice President, EMEA as part of a restructure of TCFTVD, which unified the licensing efforts throughout all television distribution media and platforms and aligned the sales organization around the three major regions: The Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific.

Before leading the EMEA sales team, Finney was Senior Vice President, Worldwide Pay TV and SVOD, where she significantly contributed to the company’s financial strategy and growth by negotiating multi-million dollar Pay TV and SVOD deals. Finney and her team were responsible for the company’s Pay TV and SVOD licensing for the following major territories: the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Russia, Central and Eastern European Countries, Turkey, Greece, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Southeast Asia.

Previously based out of the London sales office, Finney led international licensing negotiations for half of the European region including the UK, France and the Nordics as Vice President, International Pay-Per-View, Video-On-Demand and Electronic Sell-Through.

A graduate of Stanford Law School, Finney’s first role at Twentieth was as Senior Counsel, Transactional (Digital Technologies and Content Protection) in Los Angeles where she led negotiations on technology and security requirements in a wide variety of content distribution deals across both the studio and network group.

Prior to her fifteen year tenure at Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Finney served as Director, Legal Affairs and Senior Counsel at Discovery Communications, Inc. At Discovery, Finney negotiated content license agreements and was the lead deal lawyer for TLC’s, Travel Channel’s and Animal Planet’s online and domestic consumer products and airline distribution groups. She was also the lead deal lawyer for Discovery’s information technology division.

Finney was an associate at both Squadron, Ellenoff & Sheinfeld, LLP and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York, NY. She currently resides in Los Angeles.

 

All session by Kristen Finney

VIEW FROM THE TOP: THE FUTURE OF TELEVISION

10:20 am - 10:50 am
SAFRA HALL