The Fierce Video editorial team is proud to present its second annual Emerging Leaders Awards, recognizing the brightest young professionals rising up the ranks of the streaming TV industry. Throughout the months of May and June we’ll be featuring these profiles with each of our finalists. We will announce the winners during our StreamTV Show with an awards ceremony June 17 at 3:15 p.m. ET. Not yet registered for the StreamTV Show, running June 15-17? Be sure to register now and save your spot at this free virtual event!
Griffin O'Brien/Amazon:
Griff O’Brien is a content acquisition manager at Amazon Prime Video Channels. His responsibilities include deal strategy, partner channel development and driving innovation for the business. Prior to Amazon, Griff worked in content licensing at Roku and was a consultant at Accenture, where he implemented data governance and analytics capabilities at Snapchat and helped grow the firm’s entertainment business.
What his colleagues are saying:
“Griff demonstrates wisdom/judgment, industry knowledge and business instincts beyond his years. In less than a year, he’s proven to be a valuable asset to the Prime Video Channels team, leading key partner relationships, negotiating/closing key deals, driving negotiating strategy and driving strategy and innovation. Griff immediately distinguished himself as a strong performer with great potential – particularly in his ability to 1) quickly earn trust and lead partner engagements with senior leaders and 2) his ability to analyze/understand data to draw conclusions, make recommendations and drive decision-making.” - Matt Cohen, head of content acquisition and partnerships at Amazon Prime Video Channels
“Griff provides strategic support to leadership by collating industry trends. He is also the lead partner manager for some of our networks and provides end to end management for them from joint business planning to quarterly reviews and operations/marketing support. Griff’s keenly analytical mind with deep industry knowledge combined with his commitment make him an invaluable member of our team.” - Soumya Sriraman, head of U.S. Channels at Amazon Prime Video
Streaming Industry Q&A:
What streaming services do you subscribe to?
Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, Paramount+, HBO Max, Disney+ and AMC+.
Describe your biggest career highlight so far.
My biggest career highlight has been joining Amazon during the pandemic. We’ve accomplished more in the last six months, fully remotely, than I would’ve thought possible. The collective effort and resilience shown across our team to successfully launch several partner channels in the U.S. has been remarkable, and I’m fortunate to be a part of it.
What has been your biggest career learning experience?
My biggest career learning experience was launching a startup while I was in college. With the help of a partner company and investor, Digisoft.tv, we created a digital television recommendation engine that provided an optimal bundle of streaming services given a viewer's content, internet, viewing and price considerations. We ultimately shuttered the company my senior year of college due to monetization struggles, but the lessons learned were invaluable.
What's next for you in terms of new challenges in streaming TV?
In the face of disintermediation in the traditional television landscape, it’s critical that we optimize selection while making the process of content discovery and consumption intuitive and frictionless for customers.