Viacom named Julia Phelps as its senior vice president, communications and culture, a newly created role at the New York entertainment conglomerate, which controls the Paramount movie studio, Nickelodeon and MTV, among other assets.
She most recently led communications for Viacom’s international operations. She will continue to report to Bob Bakish, president and CEO of Viacom.
Phelps will serve on the company’s senior executive team and lead corporate communications, corporate marketing and culture.
“Julia has been an indispensable partner for me in developing and articulating Viacom’s strategy, while keeping us true to our values and responsive to our employees,” said Bakish, in a prepared statement. “It is absolutely critical that both our external stakeholders and our people understand and embrace our new vision for Viacom, and Julia’s insight, empathy and forward thinking make her uniquely suited to this task.”
Phelps will oversee teams assigned to corporate communications, corporate marketing, corporate responsibility, and special events, as well as Catalyst, its internal creative agency. She was most recently executive vice president of Communications at Viacom International Media Networks. Previously, Phelps served as senior vice president of corporate communications for the unit and as a vice president of corporate communications for Viacom.
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Phelps joined Viacom in 2005 from New York based agency DeVries Public Relations. A native of Canada, she earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, and an M.S. in Strategic Communications from Columbia University.
