Verizon’s Oath, which serves as parent company for AOL and Yahoo, today appointed Vanessa Wittman as its new chief financial officer.
Wittman joins Oath after previously serving as CFO at Dropbox, Motorola and Marsh & McLennan. She will be working directly with Oath CEO Tim Armstrong.
“Vanessa is an exceptional leader with singular experience, and she will be a great partner to help drive Oath's vision, strategy, and operations to reach our long term goals,” Armstrong said in a statement. “Vanessa joins Oath at an exciting point in our journey to build a differentiated company creating the future of mobile and the internet in combination with Verizon. I want to thank Holly Hess for being a founding force at Oath, as well as a driver behind the original Verizon and AOL deal. She made significant contributions to Oath and we look forward to continued collaboration with Holly in her new role at Verizon.”
Oath’s former CFO Holly Hess is moving to a new role at Verizon where she will lead Verizon’s previously announced $10 billion cost savings initiative. Hess will report to Verizon CFO Matt Ellis. Hess led the Oath team through the close of Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo in June 2017.
The management shift at Oath comes as the company has been busy securing a number of big live sports deals for its platforms including Yahoo Sports. Late last year, Verizon announced a renewed deal with the NFL that will allow the company to stream Sunday Night, Monday Night and Thursday Night football games and the ancillary content across its digital and mobile properties.
Then, earlier this year, Verizon announced a new deal with the NBA. NBA content will be featured on Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Fantasy and across Verizon’s other media brands. The companies will allow users to purchase NBA League Pass in the U.S. on Yahoo Sports and other Verizon media platforms and launch a new daily show featuring NBA highlights and commentary.
Verizon and the NBA will also work on developing augmented reality and other forms of content, along with original sports and lifestyle programming utilizing the league’s archive of NBA footage across Yahoo Sports and Verizon’s media platforms.