Kern Schireson

Kern Schireson is the Chairman and CEO of Known, a modern marketing company that delivers world class science, strategy, and creative in a single integrated offering that helps clients achieve their goals. Known was formed after Schireson Associates – founded by Kern – acquired Blackbird Global and Stun Creative in 2019.

From 2015-2019, in addition to his ongoing executive leadership of Schireson Associates, Kern served as Viacom’s Chief Data Officer and Corporate Executive Vice President. As a member of the Executive Leadership Team reporting to the CEO, Kern led the development and global implementation of market-leading data, advertising, and platform capabilities across the company’s television, theatrical, events, consumer products, and digital business units.
During his time at Viacom, Kern also led the transformation of its corporate and brand research function, built an Audience Science and Data Strategy team, developed the Advanced Advertising group, and led the Corporate Business Development function where he was responsible for transforming the business model in traditional partnerships with Comcast, Charter, and Altice, as well as new distribution platforms including Snapchat, Facebook, Roku, and Hulu.

Prior to - and during - his time at Viacom, Kern served as the Chairman of Schireson Associates, a Marketing Strategy and Data Science consultancy. Kern built Schireson from a sole proprietorship in 2003 to a private equity-backed business valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars in 2019 by serving clients including Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, General Motors, Accenture, and ViacomCBS among others.

Prior to Schireson Associates, Kern held a variety of entrepreneurial leadership roles in venture-backed tech companies. He has been hailed as a Media Maven, Industry Innovator, and was twice named to Adweek’s “50 Most Indispensable Executives in Advertising.” Kern is a GP and member of the investment committee of Lunch Partners, an early stage private investment vehicle for some of the world’s most powerful CMO’s. Kern is on the board of Charity Navigator and Nomadica Wine.