Kern Schireson

Kern Schireson is Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President at Viacom responsible for expanding Viacom’s market-leading data capabilities across all areas of the company’s domestic and international business, including its television, theatrical, events, consumer products, and digital business units.

Schireson previously served as Viacom’s Executive Vice President of Data Strategy and Consumer Intelligence, where he oversaw the Strategic Insights and Research team as well as the Audience Science, Data Strategy, and Corporate Business Development teams. He played an instrumental role in the creation of Viacom Vantage, Viacom’s data-driven advertising initiative and the launch of Viacom’s 2016 Datafront, a first-of-its-kind event for the industry, which explored how data strategy is redefining television.
 
Prior to joining Viacom, Kern served as CEO of Schireson Associates – an insights and strategy consultancy that he founded.  In over a decade at Schireson, Kern led the development of innovative product and brand strategy for some of the world’s leading companies including Amazon, American Express, Intel, Microsoft, Nestle, and many others, 
 
Prior to founding Schireson Associates Kern led the Marketing and Product teams at Informative an online market research firm that pioneered a  technology for combining structured and unstructured data to derive rich context.  Prior to Informative, Kern served as a senior executive in Product Management and Marketing roles at two venture-funded startups in the US and UK and was the Chairman of an educational non-profit that recruited, trained, and placed at-risk young adults into entry level jobs in technology support.
 
Early in his career Kern specialized in network security and was responsible for the design and management of some of the largest private networks in the world.  He has lectured extensively on this topic, written two advanced courses, and published a column in PC Magazine.