Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch Jumps To Top Job At Mattel, Succeeding Ynon Kreiz
Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch has stepped down in order to take the top job at Mattel.
Ynon Kreiz, who steered the toymaker through its Barbie movie breakthrough, is poised to take “a senior leadership position at another public company,” an announcement by Mattel said Wednesday.
Lynch, whose appointment as CEO takes effect on November 2, will become chairman on October 2. He has been a member of Mattel’s board of directors since 2018. Lynch took over Condé Nast as CEO in 2019, helping the publishing giant navigate declines in print readership and advertising along with Covid. He will remain on the company’s board of directors.
The move follows what Mattel described as a “comprehensive succession planning process” after Kreiz spent eight years running the company. Board member Judy Olian, who led the succession process, called Lynch “a visionary leader with a track record of growing global companies at the forefront of changing industry and consumer trends.”
Before leading the parent company of Vogue and the New Yorker, Lynch was CEO of music streamer Pandora and the founding chief exec of Sling TV, the streaming pay-TV provider launched a decade ago by Dish Network.
Along with the inherent complexities of running a media company born in the 20th century as it reckoned with the consumer habits and tech innovations of the 21st, artificial intelligence was a major challenge. Condé Nast, like other publishers, has seen its web traffic decline as AI chatbots aggregate information that readers would previously have sought out on media platforms.
Mike Perlis, lead independent board member for Condé Nast who has previously run media companies Forbes and Ziff Davis, will become interim CEO while a search for a permanent top exec is conducted.
Kreiz, who previously had CEO stints at Endemol Group, Fox Kids Europe and Maker Studios before its acquisition by Disney, turned Mattel toward Hollywood during his eight years at the helm. The main fruit of that effort was Barbie, which became a global phenomenon in 2023, grossing $1.4 billion and netting multiple Oscar nominations.
Efforts to make a Barbie sequel have run aground on budget issues, however. A Hot Wheels movie project is in development, but the flow of entertainment adaptations has been erratic. Mattel stock has fallen 31% over the past five years.
“It has been a privilege to lead Mattel, with a global team dedicated to its mission and purpose, and I am proud of all we have achieved together,” Kreiz said in a statement. “I have every confidence the company will continue to thrive under Roger’s leadership.”
Lynch said during his time on Mattel’s board, he came to admire its “brands, its talented people, and unique culture. I am especially grateful to Ynon for his many years of outstanding leadership and service to the company.”