Chief Operating Officer & Chief Financial Officer at CBS Entertainment Group, Paramount Global
Bryon Rubin CBS CFO,COO Interview by Shalvi Singh, MBA Lehigh University
Bryon Rubin CBS CFO,COO Interview by Shalvi Singh, MBA Lehigh University.
About Bryon Rubin
Bryon Rubin, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of CBS Entertainment Group at Paramount Global, participated in a 2022 interview with Shalvi Singh of Lehigh University. Rubin discussed CBS's operations, including its news bureau in South Africa and a 60 Minutes story on an organization called Justice Defenders. He noted that CBS had been the number one network for 18 of the previous 19 years and described the challenge of cracking the network's lineup. Rubin stated that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is "one of our most important initiatives," adding that CBS has numerical goals for hiring directors, producers, and actors, and that compensation is tied to those goals. He also commented that the company has gone through several mergers and restructurings, and that "sometimes restructuring means some people have to leave — that's difficult."
Transcript (31 segments)
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Narrator0:00
Of CBS Entertainment Group, Mr. Bryon Rubin. Mr. Bryon Rubin oversees all financial and business operations to support the visions of the CBS Entertainment Group. This group, which includes the CBS Television Network, CBS Sports, CBS Studios, CBS Television Stations, CBS Media Ventures, and the digital assets related to each of these groups. Mr. Rubin has been with CBS and now ViacomCBS for 22 years, serving in various roles including Executive Vice President of Corporate Development with responsibility for company-wide strategy and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to that, he was Chief Financial Officer of CBS Interactive. Before joining CBS, Mr. Rubin worked in investment banking and public accounting. He is a graduate of Lehigh University with a bachelor's degree in accounting in 1992. He also completed his MBA at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in 1996.
Now introducing the moderator for our headline fireside chat, Ms. Charu Singh. Ms. Singh is an experienced product and brand marketing professional. She received a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science from the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology. She is currently enrolled in the MBA program at Lehigh University and graduates this May in 2022. Her professional experience includes founding CedaBook, a crowdfunding P2P platform to help young and aspiring writers and novelists get their books published. She's also held several positions such as Digital Marketing Lead Consultant at Steve Detroit International, Digital Marketing Manager at Paranormal Record, and also Senior Marketing Manager East Asia, Middle East, and Africa at the Graduate Management Admission Council. Without further ado, I would like to introduce Ms. Charu Singh.
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Charu Singh2:07
Hi everyone, I hope I'm audible. All right. So, I hope everyone is doing well. I'm sure Bryon is joining, and let's just wait for him.
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Bryon Rubin2:24
Hey everybody, how are you? It's a wonderful day today.
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Charu Singh2:29
Thank you so much, Bryon, for joining us today. We are really grateful for having the opportunity to listen to you speak, and I know the audience is really excited to hear you. So, without further ado, I'll just get started. Before we begin, I'd like to request the audience to keep their questions ready because in the end we'll have a short Q&A and we'll have answers from Bryon himself. So, my first question to you, Bryon, is: you currently hold the position of CFO and COO at CBS. As the production said, the roles are not identical. How did you manage the added responsibility in these uncertain times? Could you throw some light on that?
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Bryon Rubin3:11
Sure. Can everybody hear me okay? Yes, I hope. The additional responsibility, listen, I think with everybody when they take on more responsibility, it's really the quality of my teams. Without the quality and breadth and experience, you know, in an odd way, the structure of Zoom helped me a bit, which might seem a little bit counterintuitive. But as I was able to meet more people that way, I mean, we had just merged with Viacom three or four months before. You know, what would have taken me months to meet people flying around the country or around the world internationally, so that was rather efficient. I'd rather not continue that, I don't know how much. The infrastructure helped really accelerate my meeting folks that.
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Charu Singh4:32
My next question to you is: CBS has been associated with broadcast media since its advent. Given how times have changed, what role do you think mass media or the entertainment industry in general plays in today's day and age?
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Bryon Rubin4:46
Yeah, it's a great question, and it has changed quite a bit in my 20, now it's 23 years actually here at the company. But, you know, I think two ways: one is really entertainment and reach, and the other is information. By entertainment and reach, it's one literally entertaining people with sports, NFL, or prime-time lineup, etc. And the reach of broadcast television is still enormous. We've got, you know, such tentpole events like the Super Bowl, which I imagine many of you watched, which draws over 100 million people at the same time watching those three and a half hours. We finished the NCAA tournament that reached 20 million people, and it goes down the line. Our shows, which definitely were basically enormous. And the ability to disseminate information is very important, even more important in today's world. Things are happening, it's always happening real-time, but they're reported about real-time. So whether that's the local weather, what's happening locally, to updating everybody on the unfortunate events of day-to-day in Ukraine. So that is the CBS News element. Broadcasting news is probably more important.
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Charu Singh6:15
Wow, thank you so much for expanding that for us. My next question to you, Bryon, is: what are CBS's international expansion plans? As somebody who was reading so much on your international plans, it was great to read about Africa. It's at the epicenter of a major societal shift as of now. How does CBS plan to leverage that? So what we already distribute, we distribute our content. What role do you think information and entertainment can play in the growth and development of nations, say in Africa?
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Bryon Rubin6:48
That's a great question. I think, I mean, on the entertainment side, you know, really on the information side, we're making a major effort to, you know, diversify the talent in front of the screen, behind the screen. You know, we want what's represented on screen to represent not only this country but the world. And we have a show now on, it's 8:30 on Monday nights that you want to watch, called Bob Hearts Abishola, which is developed by Chuck Lorre, who did The Big Bang Theory, if you're familiar with that, and Two and a Half Men. And it's an important show for us. It's about a white man who has a heart attack and he falls in love with a Nigerian woman. And the story is about that, but the importance of that is the woman who he falls in love with's best friend is a London-born actress, I'm sorry, she lives in London, they're born in Nigeria to Nigerian parents, and she's a co-creator of the show, which is very important. So not only was it important to us to have a Nigerian woman and family, but she co-created the show with the understanding of Nigerian culture and family, and she really brings that forth on screen, which was really important. So that's on the entertainment side. And on the information side, we think it's very important. We have a news bureau in South Africa. It's not just disseminating news from America to Africa. And we've done, I noticed, I want to get the name right, on our 60 Minutes show, which we air on Sunday nights, we had a story from this past August called Justice Defenders, which is an organization that helps prisoners in Africa defend themselves, which is very important because those resources aren't available to everybody, as many Americans. So that was an important story.
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Charu Singh9:08
That's really a lot of work, Bryon, and it's great that we mentioned The Big Bang Theory and Justice Defenders because those are shows that do ring a bell, and you know, some of them have nostalgia factors for us as well. So moving on, on the same lines, the question I have for you is: marginalized communities face more problems than privileged communities. It's not something which is hidden. Racism is one aspect, but there is so much more to this game of access and rights. Do you think, what the UN claims that Africa's entertainment industry has massive untapped potential, and to Michael's point, we were talking about potential in Africa today. The president says that we could create 20 million jobs and add 20 billion to the continent's combined GDP through the entertainment industry. What role do you foresee CBS playing in this whole gamut?
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Bryon Rubin10:01
Yeah, we are going to continue to produce content internationally, including Africa. And when we do that, you know, we bring hundreds and hundreds of jobs to a location whenever we do that.
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Charu Singh10:30
Moving on, we talk about you and your experiences. We have many young leaders here today who aspire to take up leadership roles in the future. What advice do you have for us who are about to start or restart our careers today?
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Bryon Rubin10:44
Sure. I think folks tell you this, but, you know, hard work obviously pays off. You know, you want to be the go-to person for your boss, whoever that is. You want to make yourself indispensable in whatever role it is, whatever function you do. You want to make yourself almost irreplaceable. I always think it's important to get a mentor or two, you know, somebody who's going to guide you.
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Charu Singh11:11
And on that same note, what has been the most challenging decision you have had to take as a leader, and what were the consequences?
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Bryon Rubin11:20
Yeah, you know, I guess I would say to that are some restructurings. You know, we've been through several mergers at our company, and restructurings, like, you know, changing new things, and sometimes restructuring means some people have to leave. That's difficult.
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Charu Singh11:52
There is one thing that the world has been talking about quite a lot of late, across companies, across cultures, and that is DEI: diversity, equity, and inclusion. How important are those principles for you, especially as you hire or form your teams?
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Bryon Rubin12:09
Yeah, it's probably one of our most important initiatives. You know, we have DEI goals, like literally numerical goals, whether that's hiring or whether that's directors, producers, or actors. We have, and we take those as seriously as we do getting our budget. And compensation is tied to that as well. So, you know, as important as it is, maybe your revenue or profits, it's equally important to get our DEI.
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Charu Singh12:51
Now, we cannot not ask this question. We have just weathered the storm, probably still weathering it, which has been the pandemic. How has the pandemic been for you? I know you touched upon it in the beginning when you talked about your career, but could you elaborate on how it has been for you personally and professionally?
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Bryon Rubin13:09
Sure. Professionally, it's been a challenge on both sides. But I have a bit of a glass-half-full view.
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Charu Singh13:17
What are some of the right choices you think an employee could make to grow fast in large organizations, especially?
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Bryon Rubin13:25
Yeah, I think, again, I think that mentorship program is important, whether it's formal or informal. And, you know, big organizations offer you a lot. But I think most of all, when you say, raise your hand when opportunities arise, or when you share your experience, or building equity inside an organization by staying longer.
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Charu Singh13:52
I think folks here would have definitely gained a lot from this. So with that, we've come to the end of the discussion, and I would like to end this fun interaction with a question, which is: what's next for Bryon? What's next for Bryon Rubin, both professionally and personally? How do the next couple of years look like?
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Bryon Rubin14:12
That's a great question. I really enjoy, you know, I wake up every day and... Personally, you know, it's funny, my wife and I talk about it. We have, in those two years you mentioned, we'll have two kids in college. We'll have just those houses where we live. What do we do? Of two to three days in the office, very good schools, and that using schools, but all good. I think it's a good question. I think we all, and you all, have to assess that, whether it's two-year increments, two-month increments, five years, always be thinking towards the future, because you often just live.
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Charu Singh15:40
Thank you so much, Bryon, for this fun interaction and answering all the questions and giving so many insights. Now I'd like to open the house for questions. Okay, so please bring any questions.
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Audience Member15:52
Yes, please. Thank you. All right. So, this week Netflix has been in the news. I think, you know, stock decreased by about 10 percent here in the first quarter. They lost more than 500,000 subscribers. Since you're in the industry, I just want you to tell us what you think for the perceived collapse of the business model. What are some of the business lessons we can derive from what you're doing, especially as I hear you talk more about creating more content, more content for very, like, different demographics?
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Charu Singh16:46
Could you hear that? No, I think I might be... Sure. So, the question here states that Netflix has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. They're fully penetrated, is the right word, they're almost fully penetrated in the United States. I know they have this issue about sharing passwords.
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Bryon Rubin17:08
You know, I think, you know, it's all about expectations and analyst expectations. Grow, but if they're at some point they get to saturation, as opposed to our company or Disney or something, there's other revenue streams. So, you know, I think it's, you know, one needs to always manage the expectations. You know, and focus on what you're going to focus on. Like, it's as a company, it's a little bit challenging to manage. I just encourage everybody, investors, whoever, just take a step back. That said, you have a report card. If you have report cards in university, we haven't worked hard and definitely everything. So, you know, I think investors step back and say, is one thing...
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Audience Member19:10
Yeah, it's a great question. We have, I guess it's the luxury of having an incredibly powerful schedule. We've been the number one network for 18 of the last 19 years, and it's yet to be determined this year. It's very difficult to crack our lineup, if you want to use a baseball phrase, and stay on there. There's just, whether we have a lot of development, I find that better than that. Building franchises and then shows that we don't have versus, you know, we evaluate everything from the financial to the non-financial world.
This question is from Evan Mensa. How is CBS impacting the area of media as an agent of change through social and behavioral change communication?
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Bryon Rubin21:39
Impacting the area of media as an agent of change through social and behavioral change...