Marianne Gambelli spent years trying to sell ads on NBC to sundry advertisers. Now she has moved to the other side of the haggling table.
Independent ad-buying shop Horizon Media said it had hired Gambelli, who until recently was head of ad sales for the NBC broadcast network, as its executive veep and chief investment officer. In the role, Gambelli will study new and emerging technology, media research and client investments while construciting multi-year ad deals as well as ad pacts that cross various media platforms.
She will report directly to Bill Koenigsberg, President, CEO and Founder of Horizon Media.
Gambelli worked for 22 years at the company that became NBCUniversal. She departed in October of last year after the company recruited Linda Yaccarino from Time Warner’s Turner to run cable and digital ad sales, then subsequently awarded her oversight of the company’s entire ad sales portfolio. With a new sherriff in town, Gambelli decided to depart.
Now Gambelli and Yaccarino could find themselves on opposite sides of ad-sales negoatiations. Horizon represents advertisers including Berkshire Hathaway’s Geico, and at one point in the not-too-distant past did some work for NBC itself.
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During her time at NBC, Gambelli helped the network work on ways to respond to sponsors increasingly seeking placement of their products in programs, and led NBC’s ad sales as the network worked on creative ways of pairing in-show product appearances with specific commercials in adjoining ad breaks.
Before her time with NBCU, Gambelli worked at agencies including New York-based Backer Spielvogel Bates and Grey Advertising from 1980 to 1990 in various media positions.
