MUMBAI: Discovery today appointed Neil Chugani as the chief financial officer and head of strategy and operations, direct-to-consumer. The announcement was made by Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, to whom Chugani reports.
In the newly created role, Chugani will work closely with Peter Faricy, CEO, global direct-to-consumer at Discovery, and his senior leadership team to drive the financial strategy of Discovery’s rapidly expanding DTC team. He will be based at Discovery’s London offices.
“We are delighted to welcome Neil to the Discovery team,” said Wiedenfels. “Neil is a highly respected digital finance leader, whose experience and skills will help us further accelerate our strategic pivot as we make our great content and brands available to our passionate fans across all platforms around the world.”
“We are thrilled to add another world-class executive to Discovery’s growing direct-to-consumer organisation,” said Faricy. “Neil has a strong track record of successful business growth in the tech and media sectors, and we look forward to working with him as Discovery continues to invest in expanding our global direct-to-consumer offerings.”
Chugani will be responsible for formulating and implementing the financial strategy that will allow the team to meet Discovery’s ambitious growth objectives in the DTC space. He will work with all of Discovery’s DTC business units, both in the US and international markets to create consistent strategic, financial, and operational practices.
Prior to joining Discovery, Chugani was at Google since 2015, where he was a senior director and held a number of leadership positions. Most recently, he served as CFO for the business and operations of Google and YouTube in Europe, Middle East and Africa. As a member of the Google EMEA Management Group, he played a key role in driving the doubling of revenue in the region over the last five years. He was previously Group CFO at BBC Worldwide, the commercial and international arm of the BBC, held senior executive positions at Sky, and was a Technology and Media Banker at Goldman Sachs. He is a former Board Member of UK Sport, the UK Government’s lead strategic body for Olympic sport, and was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2009.
