John Zieser

Senior Media Executive | Director | Investor, USA

John Zieser is a senior media executive, director, and investor with a unique and long-established record of success in business development and deal-making, business operations and acquisition integration, and finance, audit, and corporate governance.

John is the Founder of JSZ Holdings, LLC, which engages in strategic and business advisory services, director and board governance, and private equity investment activities.

John served as Chief Development Officer and General Counsel for Meredith Corporation (NYSE: MDP), one of the nation’s leading multi-platform media and marketing services companies. He was responsible for managing the Company’s business development functions and oversaw company-wide legal affairs, corporate privacy, and government relations.

During his time at Meredith, John played a key role in the transformation of Meredith’s businesses through multiple expansion initiatives in the media, digital, e-commerce and licensing sectors. John was the chief architect of the separation of Meredith Corp into two operating groups: Local Media Group (LMG) and National Media Group (NMG), and then led the sale of LMG to Gray Television (NYSE: GTN) for $2.825B and NMG to IAC (NASDAQ: IAC) for $2.7B. Both transactions closed in December 2021, and combined resulted in approximately $60 per share to Meredith’s shareholders, a 600% return over a 12 month period.

As a founding board member of Texture, a digital magazine app formed by Meredith, Hearst, Newscorp, Condé Nast, and Rogers Media in 2010, John helped navigate strategy, distribution channels, and marketing to consumers. John played a principal role in conducting a strategic review which resulted in Texture being sold to Apple in 2018. Texture then became the core component of Apple News+. This transaction included a multi-million dollar licensing partnership between Apple and Meredith.

John is currently on the public board of Heartland Media Acquisition Corporation (NYSE: HMA) and was nominated by Alden Global to join the public board of Lee Enterprises (NASDAQ: LEE). John served as Board Trustee of IPC Media Pension Trustee Limited, a pension fund based in the United Kingdom, and has sat on numerous boards of digital and media portfolio companies.