Cliff Marks to Retire as President of National CineMedia

Courtesy National CineMedia

In-theater advertising company National CineMedia (NCM) has announced that Cliff Marks, president of NCM since 2016, will be retiring as of July 1, 2021.

A 19-year veteran of NCM, Marks was instrumental in the creation of the company’s pre-show, now known as Noovie, thus helping to transition the cinema industry into a premiere advertising option. Marks will continue to work with NCM on major initiatives, corporate development, and affiliate partnerships on a consultancy basis, working through his own strategic media and marketing company, CMarksCo, LLC.

With Marks retiring, NCM’s EVP & Chief Revenue Officer Scott Felenstein has been promoted to President, Sales, Marketing & Partnerships. Mike Rosen, NCM’s SVP of East Coast Sales, will assume Felenstein’s current role. Felenstein joined NCM in 2017 following 17 years at Discovery Communications, Inc., where he oversaw advertising sales and managed relationships with top agencies and clients. Rosen, with NCM since 2020, previously served in an executive capacity at Roc Nation and NBCUniversal.

NCM CEO Tom Lesinski said: “Scott has been successfully leading our sales team to new heights as CRO for the past four years, and he was hand-picked by Cliff as his trusted successor and is ideal to take over the reins to lead NCM’s Sales and Marketing organization. With a strong summer movie season anticipated on the heels of a great Memorial Day at the box office, both Scott and Mike are already highly engaged in driving revenue and were instrumental in helping get NCM through the most difficult time in our industry to emerge as an even stronger, more diverse media company. As the availability of quality video GRPs in the ad marketplace continues to decline, Scott and Mike will continue to lead the charge to help marketers reach national movie audiences at scale on the big screen and beyond. NCM is in great hands.”

Lesinski continued, “Cliff has been the champion of cinema advertising in the U.S. from the beginning and has been instrumental in turning it into the extremely successful premium video medium it is today. He has helped countless brands harness the storytelling power of the big screen to reach young, diverse, cord-cutting movie audiences, and built NCM into the largest cinema advertising network in the world. He has always said he wanted to retire early, but anyone who knows Cliff knows that he loves this business and is not the type to sit still, so I am thrilled that he will continue to have an active advisor role with NCM. I am grateful for his many contributions to NCM, I look forward to continuing working with him as a partner as we grow our business and expand our business verticals.”

Courtesy National CineMedia

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