Global Marketing / Partnerships / Senior Level Intraprenuer Serving C Suite

Stephanie’s career has truly been at the intersection of media, technology and advertising. She is a rare corporate intrapreneur and startup innovator that has lived and worked in New York, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, with deep networks and expertise in her field.

About

She started her career as a literary agent representing writers and directors in film and television at Paradigm, and then later produced while working for Ken Gross Management.  The TNT film, “A Slight Case of Murder” received an Emmy (William H. Macy starred) and she received front and back producer credit for a CBS Film that became a successful holiday franchise for CBS.

CBS has long offered her a role at the company, and years later she joined as Vice President, Marketing, reporting to the CMO, where she served for seven years.  In her dual role, she devised the positioning and ratings strategies for CBS primetime shows and also ignited relationships with technology companies, cable outlets and CE manufacturers to extend CBS’ audience reach.

Gaines created a partnership with Intel that spanned across the sales, marketing and digital teams, and as a result, served on Intel’s DIgital Home Group’s Consumer Board of Advisors.  

She received recognition within the industry including MultiChannel News’ “Executives to Watch”, the CBS Promo Award for launching a nationwide audience alert to scheduling changes via text.  

Her passion for technology and understanding that technology was driving changes in storytelling, led her to Silicon Valley.  There, she created first-in-market deals between major media outlets and emerging streaming platforms including: 

  • Brought HBO GO on board to Matcha and secured front-page article written by Mike Shields for AdAge for the company; acquired by Apple.

  • Brought Paramount Films onboard to TubiTV as it’s first major motion picture deal.

  • Consulted for Microsoft & Technicolor as they looked to deepen their footprint within the entertainment and advertising arenas.

Gaines served multiple times for Technicolor, initially as a strategy consultant, as they endeavored to deepen their work and acquire companies within the advertising and entertainment sectors, and then later leading partnership marketing for their VFX, advertising and film production studios including MPC, The Mill and Mr. X. 

More recently she has led strategy, marketing and partnerships at public companies within the content delivery, edge compute and mobile sectors. She has most recently served as Head of Industry Marketing for TextNow, part of a core team responsible for growing the company from $62M to $103M within one year. There, she created the commercial storyline that promoted the company’s largely GenZ and multicultural audience of 10M+ monthly consumers.

She is an intrapreneur that creates new sales and product channels that drive revenue and is an inherent marketer that lands press for even the most challenging initiatives.

MARKETING HIGHLIGHTS

  • Created media strategy, positioning and ratings strategy for primetime TV shows

  • Analyzed competitive landscape and data on a daily basis to adjust marketing to win by specific audience segments.

  • Launched first TV network alert to inform viewers of changes in scheduling instantaneously.

  • Ignited multi-million dollar partnership with Intel that spanned across the marketing, sales and digital divisions.

  • Launched new digital and social media channels to extend the reach of the linear audience and create new storylines/shareable moments. 

  • Re-branded and repositioned company to a data-driven, full stack programmatic offering in three months, in under $100K that included everything from sales pitch to all branding elements.

  • Produced highly sought-after tentpole events at key global events including Cannes, CES, SXSW, DMEXCO. The events were visually stunning and yet very warm/personable while effectively driving sales. 

  • Launched Technicolor’s campaign to focus its technology and innovation in VR/AR/Immersive Media with partners including Intel, NVIDIA, HP, and others. Created an innovation hub/center where partners could showcase their work and press could experience activations in real life.

  • Core team that accelerated revenue from $63M to $102M within the first year.

  • Created storyline and positioning for unknown free calling & texting app that demonstrated our strength in multicultural and GenZ audiences that resulted in continuous press placement and secured initial clients including McDonalds and MTV.

  • Ignited more than 100 direct introductions to senior-level decision makers in one quarter at top-tier brands. 

Branding Moments

  • In print - writing

  • Website Launches

  • New List Item

  • New List Item

Events

Writing Samples

PRESS HIGHLIGHTS

  • Launched press initiatives with partners in immersive media including Intel, NVIDA and HP that landed in top-tier publications including The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Forbes, Fortune, etc.

  • Garnered more than 200 press placements within one quarter.

  • Secured more than 250 industry press placements per year in the highly competitive programmatic advertising arena.

  • Created breakthrough research in the areas of digital video, cross-screen advertising, VR/AR and Immersive media that received premium press coverage and was endorsed at the highest levels within the IAB.  

  • Created positioning of TextNow as a robust source of GenZ and multicultural audiences to the advertising community resulting in continuous placement in BBC, TechCrunch, AdExchanger, Glossy, WWD, among many others.

  • Successfully positioned senior executives as thought leaders within the GenZ and multicultural arena.

Launches

  • Produced telefilms for TNT and CBS, CBS holiday special became a franchise that garnered highest ratings for holiday program in its history.

  • Launched first-ever TV network initiative that alerts viewers to changes in scheduling due to sports overruns via text.

  • Launched industry’s first cross-screen digital video advertising product that became revenue producing within 16 weeks.

  • Launched industry’s first real-time, sub-second video delivery product.

Industry Expertise

Alan Crouch, VP, Global Payments Gateway Engineering, Verifone, Former VP/GM Intel

“Stephanie is a recognized expert in the digital media industry. She is out in front as an innovator in content distribution, especially in multi-screen TV anywhere. She is a natural connector, with a deep influential network of global leaders in the media industry. Stephanie is a pleasure to work with. She is a team player who gets results.”

Rick Mandler, SVP, Strategy & Operations, true(X), Former VP, Strategy & Digital Media Advertising, ABC

“I met and got to know Stephanie well when we both sat on an advisory board for Intel. She immediately stood out as one of those relatively rare people who are equally conversant in “old” media and “new” media. Stephanie is remarkably forward looking, with a great sense of where the media industry is going, and how technology is driving that transition. Adept at seeing trends and putting people together, Stephanie is an absolute pleasure to work with. I cannot recommend anyone more highly..

Patrick Hanlon, author of Primal Code (required reading at YouTube) and recognized brand/audience builder

“Stephanie Gaines is an extraordinary asset to any marketing team. Stephanie not only understands the concepts of how to grow, she works the tactics. She’s the person who writes the plan and then works eight days a week to make sure it gets executed properly. It’s not just a job for Stephanie, it’s a mission. Stephanie is the person who gets you 300 articles in magazines, because she called all the editors before, during and after she submitted. She understands--from her years in Hollywood, New York City and her years at ‘Black Rock’ that serious growth doesn’t come from checking “how to” boxes, sparkling personality or petting unicorns (of course, she can do all that too), but from great strategy, strong work ethic and brilliant tactics. If you want marketing that drives revenue and launches products, hire her.”

Lane Cooper, Former VP of Marketing Communications at Technicolor

“Tough task...call Steph.” This has become a mantra for the corporate communications team at Technicolor as the flow of strategically important -- but operationally nuanced -- assignments all too regularly come into the group. On any given day the team must provide high-brow treatment of Academy and Emmy Award winning projects, while simultaneously producing technically accurate communications about the future of immersive media (VR/AR and beyond), IoT, artificial intelligence and the connected home market. Stephanie Gaines has played a critical leadership role in marshalling the resources of our external and internal communications teams to make simple and clear how it is that the entire ecosystem of content creation, distribution and consumption is evolving. She has done this while putting into a credible and authoritative context the role that Technicolor -- a creative technology company -- plays in each stage of the value chain. It is no mean trick. She has left an indelible mark in how we work with press, analysts, partners and clients to craft joint messages, develop integrated go-to-market strategies, and produce events of all sizes. So yeah, Stephanie is my kind of executive.”

Recommendations

Partnerships

Marketing