Discovery appoints digital products lead

Discovery has promoted Karen Leever to president of US digital products and marketing.

Karen Leever

In the role, Leever – who was most recently executive VP and GM of digital media at Discovery – will oversee the company’s suite of 18 TV Everywhere Go apps, and manage the development, engineering, analytics, operations and monetisation of Discovery’s digital businesses Stateside.

She will also spearhead Discovery’s domestic direct-to-consumer endeavours.

Leever will be based at global headquarters in New York, and report into Peter Faricy, CEO of global direct-to-consumer.

In her previous role, she was responsible for extending the reach of Discovery’s digital brands and businesses in the US, launching the company’s mobile-first suite of TV Everywhere Go apps, which now generate more than 40m streams per month.

Leever also led strategy, design and development for the Go apps and was responsible for driving design and development of Discovery’s network websites.

Prior to joining Discovery, Leever spent 10 years at DirecTV, where she served most recently as senior VP of digital and direct sales.

While at DirecTV, she also drove new subscription acquisition growth, digital product strategy and all cross-platform digital efforts.

David Zaslav, president and CEO of Discovery, said: “Over the past three years, Karen has brought us where we are today with Go, building an incredibly successful, mobile-first TV everywhere business that our super-fans love and helping to attract new, younger audiences to our brands and programs.”

Leever added: “It has been wonderful to collaborate with Discovery’s iconic portfolio of networks to expand their reach and bring their world-class content to superfans on new platforms and devices anytime, anywhere.”