Penney ’87 Promoted to Chief Strategy Officer at Starz

Starz CEO Chris Albrecht has named John Penney ’87 Chief Strategy Officer at Starz, the integrated global media and entertainment company. Penney will work closely with the CEO to extend the company’s corporate and business growth strategies via partnerships, ventures and innovative models for new business opportunities.

“His deep insight into the global media and entertainment ecosystem is uniquely valued,” said Albrecht, in a press release. “He has set a high bar in providing our management team with keen industry analysis that has been invaluable to our decision making, and we look forward to John’s continued contributions to helping grow our businesses.”

Penney was a social psychology major at Wesleyan who went on to earn his MPA in public policy & administration from Columbia. He’s worked as a financial analyst in the Media & Telecommunications Corporate Finance group of the Chase Manhattan Bank, as an equity research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc. covering the media and entertainment industries, at Scient, Inc., Viacom, ACTV, HBO, IMG and Forsee Entertainment, which he cofounded with Albrecht.

He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter and works in Beverly Hills.