At Meredith, John S. Zieser was the chief architect and led the structuring of the separation of Meredith Local Media Group (LMG) and National Media Group (NMG) in 2020. Pursuant to this separation, John then led the sales process for LMG and negotiated the sale of LMG to Gray Television for $2.825B and the subsequent sale of NMG to IAC for $2.8B. Both transactions combined resulted in approximately $60 per share to Meredith’s shareholders, approximately 600% increase in share value over a 12-month period. John has managed over $20B of deals both on the buy and sell side in all sectors of the media, marketing, and digital landscape. John has played a key role in the transformation of Meredith’s businesses through multiple expansion initiatives in the media, digital, consumer revenue and licensing sectors.

These initiatives include:

• The $2.8B acquisition of Time Inc. in 2018. John led the negotiation and execution of the transaction as well as led the raising of $650M preferred equity from Koch Equity Development to facilitate this acquisition.

• John played the lead role in building through acquisition Meredith’s Digital Media business, one of the top ten digital media businesses in the US, with over $800M in revenue and $200M of operating profit, with over 200M digital consumers. As part of Meredith’s ‘buy and build’ strategy, John led the development and execution of multiple acquisitions in the digital media space commencing with the acquisition of Allrecipes.com, the world’s leading food destination. The Allrecipes acquisition was awarded Strategic Acquisition of the Year in 2012 by the Association for Corporate Growth, the premier global community for mid-Market M&A.

• Following AllRecipes, John led several complimentary and “bolt-on” digital acquisitions, playing a key role in the integration of these businesses and intellectual and human capital into the Meredith platform and organization.

• As part of the Time transaction John played a leading role in the acquisition of Time Inc’s Digital Media business in 2018.

• John also led on the development and building of Meredith’s global licensing business which ranks number two in the World behind only Disney, with over $25B in aggregate transaction volume. This business has been driven by the long term strategic licensing relationships with Walmart Better Homes and Gardens product line which spans over 3000 products sold online and at retail, the Realogy Better Homes and Gardens real estate business, along with numerous other US and international licensing partnerships.

• John has also played a leading role in building out Meredith’s $1.3B revenue/$300M operating profit consumer revenue business including its high growth e-commerce and digital marketing businesses through the acquisition and integration of a series of digital commerce and lead generation businesses.

• John was a founding board member of Texture, a startup digital content app-based in Silicon Valley initially formed by Meredith, Hearst, Newscorp, Condé Nast and Rogers Media. As a key board member, John helped navigate Texture strategy, distribution channels and marketing to consumers. John played a key board role in conducting a strategic review of Texture, which led to the Texture board pursuing a strategic partnership with a large technology partner. John then led a process which resulted in Texture being sold to Apple in 2018. John played the principal role in negotiating with Apple. This transaction was structured to include in addition to the acquisition purchase price, a strategic content agreement with Apple, with significant multi-million-dollar annual content license fees to Meredith. This content is now the principal component of Apple News+, which is embedded in Apple iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

• John has also played a key role in Meredith’s Local Media Group’s strategy and led many station acquisitions including KMOV (St. Louis), KTVK (Phoenix), WGGB (Springfield MA), WALA (Mobile) and WPCH (Atlanta), for purchase prices in the aggregate of over $750M. John also led the sale of KASW (Phoenix) to Nexstar because of the Federal Communications Commission imposing new limits on market ownership.

• John also architected, developed, and executed innovative strategic partnerships with industry leaders regarding Meredith brands. John played a key leadership role in forging the Better Homes and Gardens licensing partnership with Wal-Mart, which spans over 3,000 products across North America, and spearheaded a Worldwide strategic partnership with Realogy, the largest real estate broker in the World, establishing the Better Homes and Gardens real estate business. In January 2021, Meredith announced a strategic alliance with Wyndham Destinations (the largest vacation rental business in the World) in regard to Meredith’s Travel + Leisure brand. Pursuant to this innovative relationship, Wyndham (1) paid Meredith $100M plus an additional $30M in marketing commitments and (2) re-branded its corporate name to Travel + Leisure (NYSE:TNL); while (3) Meredith continues to operate and monetize the T+L Media business and (4) the two companies team together on win-win strategic opportunities going forward.

• John leverages his expertise and deal-making network to create and execute on these win-win strategic opportunities.

Given John's successful leadership in business-deal-making, board governance and strategic initiatives, he is frequently public strategic companies, private equity and hedge funds to serve as an independent director of a target company. These situations frequently arise when the target's incumbent board and/or management is entrenched or otherwise not open to change. Many times, there are also potential proxy contests and complex legal and fiduciary duties in play. John leverages his communication skills, board experience and business acumen to ask incumbent boards and management the 'tough questions' in a constructive manner, building consensus and moving change initiatives forward.

John is a well-recognized international speaker and panelist on business development and in the digital marketplace, and he is regularly featured in leading trade and online sites including The Deal, Silicon Alley Insider, Folio Magazine, Advertising Age and Mergers and Acquisitions Magazine. John has also been featured in Super Lawyer and The National Law Journal. John was honored as one of the 2012 Folio 40, recognizing the industry's most innovative and distinguished professionals, and one of 2014's Always On Power Players in Digital Media who recognizes the most influential supporters of digital media and entrepreneurs.

John was Group President at First Data Merchant Services, a $800 million subsidiary of First Data Corporation. John held previous senior operations and development positions at First Data.

John was with the multi-national law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell where he specialized in U.S. and international mergers, acquisitions, venture capital and private equity transactions. While at Sullivan & Cromwell, John had posts in the U.S. as well as London and Australia.

John earned his law degree from Cornell University, graduating Magna Cum Laude with Order of the Coif honors, and serving as Senior Editor on the Cornell Law Review. John earned both his MBA and BBA degrees with Beta Gamma Sigma honors from the University of Iowa.

• Vanguard Law Magazine - Business-minded GC Deals in Media Growth