Chris Spadaccini was named Chief Marketing Officer, The CW Network, in February 2023. In his role, Spadaccini oversees the network’s broadcast and digital marketing divisions.

An award-winning marketing leader with over 20 years of experience building media, entertainment, and lifestyle brands that consumers love, Spadaccini was a driving force behind building the iconic HBO brand. As Chief Marketing Officer for Warner Media Entertainment, Spadaccini was responsible for marketing a portfolio of category-leading brands including HBO, TBS, TNT, truTV, and all aspects of brand and content marketing for HBO Max, the company’s direct-to-consumer streaming platform.

Spadaccini had a remarkable 20-year career at HBO, where he served as Head of Marketing, responsible for overseeing brand strategy, creative advertising, media, consumer promotions, multicultural and digital platform marketing. Under his leadership, the HBO team built a reputation as the gold-standard in television marketing and helped propel the network to record-breaking results. While he has built a career in ‘big media,’ Spadaccini is an entrepreneurial builder at heart, most recently evolving the marketing function and driving growth at CAMP, an early-stage retail-entertainment company targeting young families.

As a senior marketing executive for HBO and WarnerMedia, Spadaccini helped to advance the organization’s digital transformation to support a global, direct-to-consumer business. Among his many success stories, Spadaccini launched award-winning campaigns for HBO’s culture-defining original programming including “Game of Thrones,” “The Sopranos,” “Entourage,” “The Wire,” “Euphoria” and “Succession.” Additionally, over a 10-year period, he led the marketing strategy for three streaming services – HBOGO, HBO NOW, and most recently, HBOMAX – all of which contributed to record revenue and subscriber growth. Spadaccini also differentiated the brand with innovative global campaigns such as “It’s What Connects Us,” which showcased HBO’s breadth and depth of premium content.

Spadaccini’s work has been recognized with numerous Cannes Lion, Emmy, Clio, Webby, Effie, and One Show awards. In addition, he has been named one of “The 25 Most Innovative CMOs in the World” by Business Insider and one of “Hollywood’s Top 25 Marketing Masterminds” by The Hollywood Reporter.

Before joining HBO, Chris worked in marketing at VH1 and in public relations at PMK/HBH. He has a BA in English Literature from Colgate University and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.

Ashley Hovey was named Chief Digital Officer, The CW Network, in April 2023. In this role, Ms. Hovey is responsible for overseeing the business strategy and day-to-day operations of the network’s digital operations and OTT streaming platforms.

Ms. Hovey joined The CW after spending five years at Roku where she oversaw the Ad Supported business for The Roku Channel (TRC), including both on-demand and FAST channel content, audience engagement, and growth. As Senior Director, TRC AVOD, Ms. Hovey built and led the Kids and Family, FAST, Music, and Espacio Latino businesses, drove overall partner strategy and monetization, and managed the multiplatform offering.

Prior to her tenure at Roku, Ms. Hovey was a senior director of advertising strategy and development at Comcast supporting the $2.5B Cable Ad business. Ms. Hovey has also worked for British Telecom and Nielsen in various business development, product and client services roles, including working with Facebook building its ad measurement solutions. 

Ms. Hovey has a Master of Business Administration from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a B.A. in Classical Languages from Pomona College. 

Heather Olander was named Head of Unscripted Programming, The CW Network, in February 2023. In her role, Olander oversees development and production of alternative reality series, events and specials on behalf of the network.

Prior to joining The CW, Olander joined NBCUniversal in 2011 as the SVP of Alternative Development & Programming for USA Network. In 2014, she added oversight of alternative programming for Syfy. In 2019, Olander took on the additional responsibility of running alternative development for NBCUniversal’s AVOD service, Peacock, and was elevated to Executive Vice President, Alternative Development & Programming, USA/Syfy/Peacock.

A transformative leader, Olander designed and built an unscripted brand and development team for USA Network, a network previously focused on scripted programming. She successfully launched series that include the CHRISLEY KNOWS BEST franchise, TEMPTATION ISLAND (reboot), MIZ & MRS. and STRAIGHT UP STEVE AUSTIN.

Prior to joining NBCUniversal, Heather served as VP, Original Series Development and Current Programming at MTV from 2003-2010.

Tom Martin joined The CW Network as Head of Business Affairs and General Counsel in February 2023. Martin is a veteran business affairs executive with over 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry. His diverse experience includes structuring and negotiating business models and deals for scripted, unscripted and documentary programming for broadcast television, cable television and streaming platforms.

Martin most recently served as the Head of Business Affairs at MasterClass, the platform where anyone can learn from the world’s best, and he was responsible for the team that negotiated deals with instructors such as Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Bob Iger, Aaron Sorkin, Steph Curry and Serena Williams. Previously, Martin was the BA Lead for Quibi, where he worked to create the business model and deal structure for Jeffrey Katzenberg’s short-form streaming platform.

Prior to Quibi, Martin served as the SVP, Business Affairs at Fox Broadcasting Company, where he was the lead negotiator for all of Fox’s unscripted programming, negotiating deals for “The Masked Singer” and “I Can See Your Voice.” Prior to Fox, he spent over 15 years at Comcast/NBCU, where he led the business affairs teams for several NBCU cable entertainment networks (E!, USA, Syfy and Esquire) as well as its scripted and unscripted cable studios (UCP and Wilshire Studios). At E!, Tom negotiated some of the network’s biggest talent deals, including the Kardashian family talent deals for “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” Ryan Seacrest’s host deal for “E! News,” Joel McHale’s deal for “The Soup,” Joan Rivers’ deal for “Fashion Police” and Chelsea Handler’s deal for “Chelsea Lately.”

Erin McIlvain was named Senior Vice President of Affiliate Distribution and Marketing for The CW Network in January 2024. In this role, she is responsible for managing the network’s distribution and overseeing affiliate relations with its station group partners.

Throughout her nearly 20-year career in the media business, Ms. McIlvain has held leadership positions in distribution, marketing and affiliate relations for some of the country’s largest cable, satellite and telco providers including DISH Network, Charter Communications, and Crown Media Holdings, Inc. (owner of the Hallmark channels). She joins The CW from GAM Media (“GAM” “Great American Media”), a general entertainment, family-friendly cable network, where she served Chief Officer, Distribution and Content Strategy. She was one of the founding officers of the company and was responsible for overseeing distribution, government relations, marketing and operations. In less than two years, she and her team grew GAM’s distribution from 31 million television households to more than 50 million, making it one of the fastest-growing cable networks in the United States. She also launched the company’s first direct-to-consumer offering and its first FAST channel.

Prior to her time with GAM, Ms. McIlvain was Executive Vice President for Distribution and Content Strategy for Crown Media Holdings, Inc., where she led the team responsible for distribution, including finance, operations, government relations and affiliate marketing for the Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and Hallmark Drama. She spearheaded the launch of Hallmark Drama as a zero-subscriber channel and grew its distribution to more than 40 million television households.

Ms. McIlvain graduated from The University of Colorado at Boulder and earned her law degree from the University of Denver College of Law.

January 2024

Beth Feldman joins The CW with nearly three decades of experience leading and executing mainstream, digital, and social media campaigns on behalf of leading television networks, film studios, consumer brands and authors. Throughout her career she launched major talk shows, primetime series, and high profile, well-known brands by developing groundbreaking media campaigns that generate media exposure and drive consumer and viewer awareness.

In addition to her new duties with The CW, Feldman serves as Vice President of Communication for the Networks Division of Nexstar Media Inc., overseeing communications for NewsNation, multicast networks, and radio. In this role Feldman has overseen the media awareness campaigns regarding the expansion of programming at NewsNation, the launch of “Cuomo,” and the communication strategy for the network’s mid-term election coverage.

For the past 15 years, Feldman has served as a partner at Beyond PR Group, developing and executing successful digital media and influencer activation campaigns on behalf of more than a dozen television series and syndicated talk shows from major television networks including: “The Talk,” “Survivor,” “The Good Wife,” “Mom,” “48 Hours,” “The Goldbergs,” “Dr. Ken,” and “Timeless,” among others. From 1996 to 2007, she held positions of increasing responsibility with the CBS Television Network and served as Vice President for the CBS Communications Group. As a leading network television communications professional, Feldman played an integral role in the media campaigns for Emmy award-winning television shows such as CBS’ hit series “CSI,” “The Amazing Race,” and the final season of “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

Feldman holds a Master’s degree in journalism from New York University and graduated with honors with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She currently resides in New Rochelle, NY with her family.

Liz Wise Lyall currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Scripted Programming at The CW Network, where she oversees current programming and scripted development, including international co-productions.

With a 12-year tenure at The CW, Liz started in current programming, acting as a creative liaison for numerous hit primetime drama series such as SUPERMAN & LOIS, RIVERDALE, ARROW, THE FLASH, DC’S LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, THE 100, iZOMBIE, NANCY DREW and TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES, among others. In 2016, she expanded her portfolio to include CW Seed digital, contributing to the success of projects like the DC animated movies CONSTANTINE and VIXEN, the popular comedy SIGNIFICANT MOTHER and The CW’s first original animated Christmas special BEEBO SAVES CHRISTMAS featuring the beloved character from DC’S LEGENDS OF TOMORROW. In 2022, Liz transitioned to the scripted development team, and in 2023, she took on the oversight of both current and development departments, merging them into one team.

Before joining The CW, Liz was an executive at Lifetime Television Network, playing a key role in the development and oversight of some of the network’s top-rated movies. Prior to her work in development, she established herself as a respected figure in discovering and championing fresh and unique voices during tenures at boutique literary agencies in Los Aneles and Toronto. Liz’s career began in physical production in Calgary, Canada.