2020 Emerging Leaders - TiVo's Nic Wilson

The FierceVideo editorial team is proud to present its inaugural Emerging Leaders Awards, recognizing the brightest young professionals rising up the ranks of the streaming video and pay TV industry. Throughout the months of June and July we’ll be featuring these profiles with each of our finalists. We will announce the winners during our upcoming OTT Blitz Week of virtual panels happening during the last week in July.

Nic Wilson/TiVo:

Nic Wilson is responsible for product sales and deployment for all new products with operators. His recent work on launching TiVo IPTV, TiVo+ and TiVo Stream 4K have helped him be promoted to head of customer success. At the age of 30, Wilson is now responsible for 50 employees and a revenue of nearly $275 million annually. He's responsible for sales engineering, solutions architecture, setting pricing across product lines and delivery management.

In previous progressive roles for TiVo, Wilson ran technical sales for the Americas, closing IPTV deals at LLA, Millicom, RCN and TDS. During this time, he helped take the company’s North American federated IPTV product line to Latin America which lowered TiVo’s cost to entry, allowing the company to address lower ARPU markets outside the U.S. and Canada. He was later promoted to lead the UX products customer success team across global markets. Wilson was also previously responsible for product management of TiVo’s next-generation IPTV platform, leading the development of features for operators including unified content discovery, voice search and other functionalities.

What his colleagues are saying:

“Nic’s strength is in his passion to lead a team to achieve customer success and satisfaction. He has broad depth of knowledge from pre-sales/technical sales to solution architecture and program management. His openness, sincerity and honesty with customers pave the way for short and long term successful customer relationships.” - Matt Milne, chief revenue officer at TiVo

Streaming Industry Q&A:

What streaming services do you subscribe to? 

I subscribe to Sling TV, YouTube TV, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime and HBO Now. I also use VUDU for my purchased library. 

What are your favorite shows you’re watching in 2020?  

My favorite shows in 2020 are "Big Mouth," "Star Wars: Clone Wars," "The Resident" and "The Neighborhood." 

What has been the highlight of your career so far? 

Coming to TiVo from Fanhattan (Fan TV) originally, the highlight of my career was the launch of TDS Telecom as a TiVo operator. They originally bought into the Fan TV vision, and ultimately launched the combined TiVo solution which was heavily influenced by TDS’ feedback and the Fan TV look and feel. Those decisions validated the original vision for Fan TV. 

What’s next for you in terms of new challenges in streaming TV? 

The TiVo Stream 4K launch, and how we as TiVo continue to adapt to the changing video landscape. The need to blend OTT and pay TV sources will continue to be a challenge for companies, and those lines continue to blur. Content fatigue is going to become a real problem for users without access to a seamless experience and quality recommendations.