Meg Whitman, who recently stepped down as CEO of HPE, will take the helm of a mobile media start-up at the behest of film business magnate Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Whitman and Katzenberg shook hands on the joint venture to create short, high-quality films for mobile. Former eBay boss Whitman told the LA Times she is returning to her “start-up roots” in taking on pole position in the new brand.
Unknown quantity NewTV will aim video content at the younger generation using smartphones, hoping to generate revenue with top-of-the-range cinematography in short bursts.
Last summer, the former executive of Paramount, Disney and DreamWorks announced his intentions to raise $2bn for his next big idea. Katzenberg has confirmed to industry executives that he now only needs $1bn to hoist the sails on the start-up, reported Recode.
NewTV declined to comment on its funding, Reuters reported.
Having joined Hewlett Packard in 2011, Meg Whitman’s time as CEO is defined by her momentous decision to split the conglomerate into HP Inc., selling printers and desktops, and HP Enterprise, focusing on business IT solutions, in 2015. Whitman left the multinational in November.
Early in her career, Whitman held the vice president role in strategic planning at Disney, at the same time Katzenberg was chairman (his tenure stretching from 1984 to 1994).
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Whitman joined a tiny company called eBay just before the turn of the millennium, and turned it into a multi-billion dollar firm before resigning as CEO in 2007.
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Later, the business mogul served on the board of DreamWorks Animation, the Hollywood company founded by Katzenberg himself.
In recent times, Whitman was reportedly passed over for the new Uber CEO position to replace founder Travis Kalanick. The role went instead to Dara Khosrowshahi, formerly of Expedia, in August 2017.
