Jeff Shultz, who has served as chief strategy officer and chief business development officer of Paramount Global’s streaming division, will leave the company at the end of the year.
Shultz joined Paramount in 2019 as part of the Pluto TV acquisition and was a key member of the leadership team that launched and expanded the Paramount+ subscription service.
Shultz announced that he will soon be leaving Paramount Global after Friday on LinkedIn. “To my colleagues at Paramount Streaming, writing this incredible story with you has been the honor of my career,” he wrote. “I’m sorry I won’t be with you for the next chapter, but I can’t wait to see where you go.”
In July, Paramount Global and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone struck a deal to merge Paramount with Skydance Media, a transaction expected to close in the first half of 2025. In the meantime, Paramount has engaged in layoffs and restructuring of its U.S. workforce, with the goal of reducing employment. 15% of the domestic workforce.
Shultz joined Pluto TV as Chief Business Officer in early 2018 after working as a consultant for the free, ad-supported streaming startup for three years. A year later, Viacom acquired the free, ad-supported streaming startup for $340 million. Tom Ryan, former CEO of Pluto TV, is now president and CEO of Paramount Streaming, which includes Paramount+, Pluto TV and the company’s other streaming businesses.
“Six and a half years ago, as I celebrated Viacom’s acquisition of Pluto TV with the team in Santa Barbara, I raised a toast in recognition of the moment that concluded, ‘We’re just getting started,’” wrote Shultz in the LinkedIn post. “Despite everything we have achieved since then, I still have the same feeling. So it is with mixed emotions that I share that I will be leaving Paramount later this year.”
Shultz touted deals he had made for the Pluto TV service, including with the NFL, Major League Baseball, Warner Bros. Discovery, A+E Networks, AMC Networks, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, MGM, Fremantle and Banijay Entertainment. Under his leadership, Pluto TV also entered into partnership agreements with Amazon, Roku, Google, Apple, T-Mobile, Verizon, Comcast, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Vizio and more.
In 2019, the year Viacom acquired Pluto TV, the free streamer generated about $70 million in revenue; three years later, “Pluto TV was a billion-dollar business,” according to Shutlz.
In 2021, the company rebranded CBS All Access as Paramount+ to create the Paramount Streaming division. In the second quarter of 2024, the division reported revenue of $1.9 billion, representing a quarter of Paramount Global’s revenue.
In his LinkedIn post, Shultz said he was “deeply grateful for the leadership and friendship of Tom Ryan, and the collaboration and excellence of the Paramount Streaming leadership team Elizabeth Wright, Domenic DiMeglio, Jeff Grossman, Amy Kuessner, Olivier Jollet, Marco Nobili, Erin Calhoun and Abhinav Chopra.