Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels walks to a session at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 9, 2025 in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
By day, Gunnar Wiedenfels is the chief financial officer of Warner Bros. Discovery and the CEO-elect of Discovery Global, one half of the soon-to-be-split company.
In his off hours, Wiedenfels is a beekeeper.
The media executive picked up apiculture with his children as a way to soften their fears about insects. He called it “an unforgettable experience” and a great life lesson. It’s also provided holiday gifts of honey for his colleagues.
“Although it has been frustrating at times to just keep these hives surviving,” Wiedenfels told CNBC in an interview, “one of the greatest lessons with bees is you have to keep calm. Never try inspecting your hives when stressed or in a rush. It won’t end well. The same hive, when approached 15 minutes later in peace, may be the most welcome.”
Wiedenfels said the same wisdom applies to his day job and his next step.
In June, Warner Bros. Discovery announced its intention to split into two public companies, effectively reversing the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery three years ago. Wiedenfels will take the helm of Discovery Global, the company that will house WBD’s TV networks including CNN, HGTV and TNT.
The streaming and studio assets of Warner Bros. Discovery, to be renamed Warner Bros., will be run by current CEO David Zaslav. Both companies will trade publicly by mid-2026, according to corporate filings.
The separation puts Wiedenfels in the CEO seat for the first time to lead a company with one of the largest portfolios of cable networks in the U.S. His financial background and recent initiatives at WBD have earned Wiedenfels a reputation as a shrewd decision-maker focused on the numbers.
“I think with Gunnar, he’s the cost-cutting guy. He’s the hard-nosed accountant, cost-focused, cost-cutter,” said John Hodulik, an analyst at UBS. “And that’s what this business is going to need. His job is to stay ahead of the declines on the cost side, and frankly, he’s perfect for it.”
Gunnar Wiedenfels became a beekeeper as part of a hobby with his children. He gave out the honey as holiday gifts to colleagues.
Courtesy: Gunnar Wiedenfels
After the 2022 merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, Wiedenfels had to contend with a debt load that initially totaled $56 billion. It’s since been cut down to roughly $35 billion.
“We’ve come a very long way over these 3½ years,” Wiedenfels said.
Colleagues from across the Warner Bros. Discovery business said in a series of interviews that Wiedenfels has done more than cut budgets, however. He’s also been integral to investment, growth and preparing the business to be split into two viable companies.
He takes the helm at a pivotal moment for media, as yearslong declines in pay TV customers show signs of stabilization and a rebalancing of priorities brings a new crop of decision-makers like Wiedenfels to the fore.
Turning Discovery Global into an investor darling won’t be easy. Warner Bros. Discovery shares have fallen more than 50% since the April 2022 merger, largely because shareholders viewed cable networks as declining assets that weighed down the company’s growth prospects.
Most of WBD’s remaining debt will be transferred to Discovery Global, which could put the company in a difficult position to simultaneously demonstrate growth and pay off debt. Wiedenfels said he believes both can be done, noting the networks are still a cash cow and there are no near-term debt maturities, leaving room to do deals.
Still, the onus is on Wiedenfels to give investors a reason to believe in Discovery Global’s narrative.
He doesn’t expect the business to return to its glory days. Streaming services have finally begun to reach profitability and while traditional pay TV networks are still profitable, that number is shrinking.
“I’m not trying to position it as a growth company,” Wiedenfels said. “We know the secular trends, but these are enormous assets we can build on and build around.”
He’ll also have to manage a wearied group of employees, many of whom have lived through several value-draining mergers, including AOL’s 2000 acquisition of Time Warner (still the largest U.S. deal ever at $165 billion and occasionally called the worst deal of all time), AT&T’s 2018 acquisition of Time Warner ($85.4 billion, and also in the running for worst deal ever) and WarnerMedia’s 2022 merger with Discovery.
Much of the necessary cost-cutting at WBD has taken place since the merger, according to a person close to the company, and discussions have already started about growth strategies for Discovery Global’s streaming and the international business, among other units.
Fighting for the job
Zaslav, who spoke to CNBC in an interview, championed Wiedenfels for the role of CEO for Discovery Global, saying he was struck by how quickly the finance chief learned all aspects of the Warner Bros. Discovery business.
“There’s only one meeting with Gunnar,” said Zaslav. “He’ll ask all the questions and put it out on the table. He’s a very real guy. He’s very direct, and he’s extremely likable.”
That likability should help appease an employee base which has become shell-shocked with cuts and layoffs over decades of mergers.
David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference at the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 8, 2025.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Having employees’ backs will be pivotal in positioning Discovery Global as a sustainable new media company.
“There’s almost no business that I’ve been involved in that we’ve gotten right when we launched and it worked. You have to fight to get it right,” said Zaslav. “[Wiedenfels is] a fighter. I mean, he’s literally a fighter. He gets up early in the morning and he takes boxing classes.”
Wiedenfels and his family came to the U.S. in 2017 when he was offered the CFO role at Discovery. Before that, he had been CFO at German entertainment company ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE since 2015 and was considered heir apparent to the CEO.
“He was really an unusual CFO, in a way, because he could equally do a tough restructuring or building of a new business. He could also do deals,” said Thomas Ebeling, the former CEO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE. “His leadership style was always an energetic one and positive.”
While at the German company, Wiedenfels was involved in the expansion into the digital space and identifying synergies between TV, advertising and digital, said Ebeling. In two or three years, Wiedenfels was instrumental in the company inking 24 deals, Ebeling added.
“I think most of them worked out well,” Ebeling said.
While he has continued on the deal-making path at WBD, Wiedenfels’ mandate also expanded as he dug into various parts of the media business.
Doing the math
The early days after the Warner Bros. Discovery merger were marked by a series of cost-cutting measures as Zaslav and his executives set out on a mission to find at least $3.5 billion in synergies.
Many of those money-saving decisions grabbed headlines.
Weeks into the start of the new company, CNN’s then newly launched streaming platform, CNN+, was shut down in a jarring reversal of what had been a buzzy expansion into direct-to-consumer.
Star-studded HBO shows like “Westworld” were canceled, and straight-to-streaming movies like DC Comics’ “Batgirl” were scrapped. Content was pulled from its flagship streaming platform, HBO Max, and some of HBO’s marquee shows like, “Sex and the City,” were licensed out for the first time to Netflix.
WBD has also cut thousands of jobs in the span of three years. As of December, the company had more than 35,000 employees.
Zaslav said much of this cost-cutting followed the data. Wiedenfels built a team focused on the analytics of WBD’s content, Zaslav said. For every piece of content, questions about its value on streaming or international platforms, as well as potential viewership and demand, were front and center.
“It gave us the conviction to say we’re not going to do [movies direct-to-streaming] anymore; we’re going to theater. It was unpopular but it was demonstrable,” said Zaslav.
Then last year, TNT Sports walked away from NBA media rights, ceding ground in live sports to NBCUniversal, Disney and Amazon.
TNT Sports Chairman and CEO Luis Silberwasser told CNBC that WBD was smart to drop NBA media rights, which it had been paying $1.4 billion annually for.
“We held the line on the NBA and said there’s going to be a point where it’s not worth it and it’s going to put tremendous risk on the business,” said Silberwasser in an interview.
TNT Sports at Roland Garros, the French Open.
Courtesy: Warner Bros. Discovery
Silberwasser and Zaslav both cited other live sports rights that the company has picked up.
“He’s spent a lot of time over the last three years really getting into the trenches,” said Silberwasser. “He’s the person that greenlit all of the investments that we made in Roland-Garros, NASCAR, among others, so he has shown he’s willing to spend, too.”
The company also renegotiated distribution deals with six major pay TV providers and kept rates steady despite the loss of NBA rights, a key move for the future Discovery Global, Zaslav said.
Adding growth
Wiedenfels’ analysis didn’t just identify areas to pull back, according to his colleagues. It also highlighted areas for further investment.
He identified Warner Bros.’ animation unit as a potential source of growth, provided it received more investment. And soon after, its team was resurrected, industry veteran Bill Damaschke was hired and content was in development.
Similarly, the company focused on rebuilding its film studio — a bright spot in WBD’s August earnings report.
The upcoming “Cat in the Hat” movie from Warner Bros. Discovery.
Courtesy: Warner Bros. Discovery
WBD also invested more heavily in HBO Max, particularly to update its technology and push international expansion. Under Wiedenfels, the company hired more engineers to improve HBO Max’s algorithm and search engine and to help it support live content, Zaslav said. After being “stuck” at roughly 95 million subscribers for about two years, launching the global streaming platform “paid off,” he added.
The company reported earlier in August it had nearly 126 million streaming subscribers and was on track to meet its goal of more than 150 million by the end of 2026.
Though these divisions will remain with Warner Bros. after the split, they will owe at least some of its recent trajectory to Wiedenfels.
CNN Chairman and CEO Mark Thompson said in an interview that Wiedenfels is “very much committed to continuing the investment in CNN.” He and Wiedenfels have recently been on a tour of the network’s various bureaus in preparation for the launch of a reimagined CNN streaming platform this fall.
“I tease him about the reputation for cost-cutting,” Thompson said. “If I’m being fair to him, however, in CNN’s case he’s more than met our ask on investments. In fact, he’s asked whether we need any more.”
Wiedenfels said the company would be investing in building out CNN’s future streaming and digital products, calling it “a pretty significant financial commitment in an industry with declining linear secular trends.”
The company is on track to invest at least $100 million in the network so far, with plans for further investment next year.
Looking ahead
A ‘Shark Week’ blimp flies over the San Diego Convention Center on July 23, 2022.
Aaronp/bauer-griffin | Gc Images | Getty Images
Although Wiedenfels is still very much the CFO of Warner Bros. Discovery, he’s already started working on his next role as CEO.
In July, Wiedenfels said, he held a workshop with the future leaders of Discovery Global, many of whom are internal hires. The meeting lasted five hours, with one 10-minute break, and the discussion was solely around what comes after the split.
“It could have gone on for another five hours because there’s so much to discuss and so much excitement to get started and hammer out all these key questions,” said Wiedenfels.
Meanwhile, on WBD’s recent earnings call, Wiedenfels plugged future strategies for Discovery Global, including plans for a streaming service for TNT Sports.
One focus after the split will be reinvesting in the company’s preexisting streaming service, Discovery+, which sat on the sidelines as the focus shifted to HBO Max.
The capital needed for that and other initiatives will be derived from the future Discovery Global business, carefully set up by Wiedenfels and other top executives.
Although Discovery Global will take on much of the remaining debt from WBD’s balance sheet, which investors expect to stand at about $30 billion by the end of the fiscal year, the networks still produce enough cash to make investment possible.
In addition, Discovery Global will retain a 20% stake in Warner Bros., the separated streaming and movie studio entity, which Wiedenfels said will “wash billions of fresh capital” into Discovery Global.
Wiedenfels also told CNBC he believes Discovery Global will have the ability to make strategic moves, including deals and acquiring sports rights.
“If I look at my career so far, I’ve always had a very broad interpretation of the CFO role. I’ve always had certain operating or strategic functions under me,” said Wiedenfels. “I’ve always taken an approach to look beyond the numbers and develop a deep understanding of the business and drivers behind it.”
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
