When the CCO(!) Steps Down (Insider Comms™ From Warner Bros. Discovery)

The authority on mixternal communications

Sometimes our boss leaves. Actually, about every five years our boss leaves; the average tenure of a Chief Communications Officer at Fortune 500 companies is just under five years.

Right on time Nathaniel Brown, CCO at Warner Bros. Discovery, announced he’s leaving the Hollywood studio after … five years in the role. [Mister Editorial readers pause to reflect on how long their CCO has been at the helm…🤔]

• Brown led comms for Discovery when it merged with WarnerMedia. Before that he was at 21st Century Fox and News Corp.

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Compare Brown’s letter to that of another C-suite executive who decided to call it quits: Susan Wojcicki, the ex-CEO of YouTube.

A CEO Says Goodbye (Insider Comms From YouTube)

Insider Comms (🔒) is a series that shows how other corporate comms professionals communicate with their audiences—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Read internal memos from Amazon, Apple, BlackRock, Disney, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Peloton, Reddit, Shopify, Snap, Sony, Spotify, Target, Uber, YouTube, and many more. Examples are added frequently.

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Observations:

• Unlike Wojcicki, Brown does what a good communicator does and gets right to the point.

• But Brown’s a corporate man, so he can’t resist cringeworthy jargon, like using “architected” instead of “built.”

• 🪖 Apparently the tie-up between Discovery and Warner Bros. was brutal because Brown uses militant language like “in the trenches” and “fight the good fight.” No wonder he’s outta there; he’s shellshocked.

• The note breezily covers the transition and the search for a successor.

• Lastly, he’s firmly in the anti-serial comma camp(!).

Given our craft, it’s clear Brown wrote his goodbye missive. It reads that way—the language is loose, conversational, and personal. That’s why I’m sharing this memo—it’s rare to read an executive note that’s written by the executive.

Here’s the memo:

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