Debra Goetz Named Gannett Marketing VP

Debra Goetz has been named vice president of marketing for Gannett Co., where she will be responsible for all corporate marketing efforts, including brand development, consumer and trade advertising and integrated strategic marketing.

The company said this new position “reinforces Gannett’s commitment to build visibility for the company and its powerful and diverse portfolio, to focus on the customer and to deliver clients compelling and impactful marketing solutions.”

“Gannett recently launched its first corporate brand campaign and Debra, with her extensive marketing and advertising experience, especially across platforms, will be invaluable in building on that work,” said Maryam Banikarim, Gannett  SVP-chief marketing officer. “She has a proven record in communicating a company’s unique value proposition and in developing insight-driven solutions for clients. Debra is creative, strategic and most importantly has a track record of driving results across a company.”

Goetz joins Gannett from NBCUniversal, where she was the vice president of integrated strategic marketing responsible for the successful launch of “Healthy at NBCU” and “Hispanics at NBCU,” as well as the continued growth of the “Green is Universal” initiative. She was integral in building and marketing these go-to-market brands and delivering customized marketing programs for such clients as GE, General Mills, Sony Pictures and Subaru.

Prior to NBCUniversal, Goetz was the VP of corporate marketing at Univision Communications Inc. In that role she helped create the company’s first brand campaign and played a key role in developing and producing Univision’s advertising upfront events. Before that, Goetz was VP of strategic marketing, where she partnered with the sales division to help drive incremental sales across the company through a client solutions selling model.

Before Univision, Goetz ran her own marketing consulting business, where she helped launch e-commerce businesses for Deutsche Bank, among others. This followed seven years at Young & Rubicam, where she worked in corporate strategy and operations, as well as account management. Goetz began her career in sales and trading at Morgan Stanley.

Goetz holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School in New York and a B.S. in finance and economics from Indiana University.