NBCU Ad Sales snags another Roku exec as Kristina Shepard joins EVP role

NBCUniversal continues to strengthen its advertising team.

Today, NBCU announced that former Roku executive Kristina Shepard will join its advertising and partnerships team as executive vice president of streaming and sales and performance partnerships. Shepard will join the company next month, overseeing all programmatic, digital and performance sales while reporting to Alison Levin, president of advertising and partnerships, NBCUniversal.

“Kristina has exceptional experience building and growing new businesses in programmatic, SMB and digital businesses,” Levin said in a statement. “She has seamlessly led a multibillion-dollar streaming operation and cultivated numerous client relationships that will elevate NBCUniversal’s position in the CTV landscape and expand our aperture in critical emerging areas of work.”

Prior to joining NBCU, Shepard served as vice president of global advertising sales and partnerships at Roku, overseeing the company’s global advertising revenue operations. Levin was also previously at Rokuas head of global media revenue before joining NBCU in November 2023.

At NBCU, Shepard will lead a new team, which will focus on bringing together sales verticals including performance, small and medium business growth (SMBG) and all major independent agencies on the East Coast, as well as partnerships horizontals covering streaming, programmatic, retail media, social and the company’s FAST networks. Shepard’s team will work to drive demand diversification and adoption of digital partnerships across customers.

“NBCUniversal has set the benchmark for combining premium content and world-class innovation amid seismic change in the industry,” Shepard said. “What the team has built so far is extraordinary, and as technology continues to influence media and advertising, I look forward to being on the front lines of the most exciting growth areas of our business.

The NBCU ad sales news comes as more companies are increasingly focused on diversifying advertisers and expanding client lists.

For example, over the summer, NBCU took steps to reach new customers by rolling out its first programmatic inventory of the Olympic Games. In the meantime, Disney recently revealed a reorganization of its advertising sales team to better reach mid-market customers, some of whom may be entirely new to CTV and video advertising.