Virginia Film Festival

Scot Safon

Marketing Consultant, Former CMO of CNN

Scot M. Safon is a consultant for Marketing, Media, and Branding, whose corporate clients include Civic Entertainment Croup, Facebook, and FairHealth. Previously, he served as Executive Vice President and chief marketing officer for The Weather Channel (2013-14) and Executive Vice President and General Manager of HLN (2010-13), where he was responsible for the management of the HLN television network. HLN is the former CNN Headline News network and is home to some of the fastest-growing news and information programming on television, including Morning Express with Robin Meade, Nancy Grace, Dr. Drew and The Joy Behar Show.

Safon earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and history from the University of Virginia and his MBA from Cornell University. Prior to running HLN, Safon served as CNN Worldwide’s Chief Marketing Officer, overseeing marketing, promotion and branding campaigns on behalf of all CNN US, CNN International, CNN.com and HLN content and news coverage. His teams marketed and promoted the brand during CNN’s award-winning coverage of the 2008 and 2004 Presidential Elections, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, the war in Iraq, and the Southeast Asia Tsunami disaster. The group’s promotional campaign for the top-rated God’s Warriors was awarded the first-ever national Emmy Award for news tune-in promotion in 2007. Promax/BDA has honored Safon and his team for campaigns including Black in America, America Votes 2008 and Planet in Peril. Safon has also served as senior vice president of marketing for Turner Network Television (TNT), and before joining TNT, Safon was in the ad agency world, handling campaigns for the CBS Television Network, working on campaigns for CBS Sports, CBS News and CBS International. He began his career as an account executive with D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, Inc., developing advertising campaigns for national consumer brands, including Pampers, Pepto-Bismol and Kal Kan Foods.