WEA CHANNELS COMCAST'S WEAVER

Comcast Advertising CMO Maria Weaver is heading to the music biz, taking over as President of WEA. She will be based in New York and report to Warner Music Group’s Global CEO of Recorded Music, Max Lousada.

Weaver will oversee the resources under the WEA umbrella, including streaming account management and playlisting, direct-to-fan and merchandising operations, consumer acquisition, content creation, legal & business affairs and finance. In addition, she will lead the growth of Warner’s network of owned-and-operated consumer brands, which encompasses merchandising e-tailer EMP, music news site HipHopDX, live-music app Songkick and youth-culture website UPROXX.

Lousada said Weaver would be “a catalyst for change, helping to redefine artist and label services as a unified global platform for talent.”

“In this attention economy, WEA is the global backbone that connects and strengthens almost all aspects of our artist development and creative marketing strategies,” Lousada continued. “A multimedia innovator, Maria comes to us with three decades of wide-ranging leadership experience.”

As Chief Marketing Officer and SVP at Comcast Advertising, Weaver was responsible for all facets of marketing and branding for the company’s advertising sales division, Effectv, including leading its rebranding from Comcast Spotlight. She also oversaw its full-service creative agency, Mnemonic, as well as FreeWheel, which provides advertising software for the television ecosystem.

This year, she launched Comcast RISE, which provides millions of dollars in grants, media and technology to Black-owned small businesses impacted by COVID. Weaver joined Comcast Spotlight in 2016 as SVP of Marketing, playing a pivotal role in launching several key initiatives, including leading the marketing team's restructuring and the launch of award-winning brand campaigns.

Prior to Comcast, Weaver was one of the founders of Interactive One, the digital division of Urban One (formerly Radio One), overseeing marketing and digital ad sales across all of the Interactive One brands.

Weaver was also the co-founder of Triple Threat Films, a film fund that financed and executive produced cinematic projects. She previously held various senior marketing and creative-services roles at HBO.