New York, NY – BBC Worldwide North America announced today the appointment of Dawn Williamson to Senior Vice President, Advertising Sales and Tim Wastney to Vice President, Advertising Sales to bolster the ad sales division based in the U.S. and Canada.

Williamson, who will be based in New York, will be responsible for the delivery of ad sales revenues for BBC.com in the U.S. and Canada, as well as global sales originating from the U.S. for BBC.com and BBC World News, the BBC’s global 24-hour news channel, as well as TopGear.com and bbcgoodfood.com.  Reporting into Carolyn Gibson, EVP, BBC Advertising (London) and Nick Ascheim, SVP, Consumer Digital, BBC Worldwide North America (New York), Williamson will set the North America ad sales strategy, lead the development of commercial offering, build innovative partnerships, manage the ad sales teams in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Toronto, and be part of the global advertising sales leadership team.

Williamson joins BBC Worldwide from iHeartMedia, where she was General Sales Manager.  Prior to this, Williamson was at Turner Broadcasting, where most recently, she was Vice President, CNN International Ad Sales, Americas, where she led and executed client solution-based sales strategies for both North America and Latin America to deliver revenue across CNN International, CNN US, CNN en Español, HLN, Airport, CNN.com, and CNNenEspanol.com.

Tim Wastney, who will also be based in New York and report directly into Williamson, will drive ad sales across all the BBC’s key businesses both nationally and internationally.  Formerly VP of Global Business Intelligence for BBC Advertising, Wastney has been a valued member of the sales leadership team based in the UK, where he developed strategy, business management, and market intelligence for the global sales organisation. Across recent years, he has led sales assignments for BBC Advertising in Sydney, Singapore, and Toronto, and brings a wealth of experience in working with brand partners to develop marketing partnerships across BBC World News TV’s 385 million households worldwide and BBC.com’s 80 million monthly unique browsers.

Gibson said: “The U.S. market is of great importance to the BBC, representing a significant proportion of our global digital footprint and with exciting growth prospects in TV and digital. This investment in senior resource will build on the success we are already enjoying with existing brand partners to deliver innovative and engaging ways to access our unique audience for U.S. based companies.”

“Dawn’s extensive experience across both digital and television ad sales – in both national and international markets – makes her the ideal sales leader for our growing business,” said Ascheim. “She and Tim are exactly the globally-minded, battle-tested media veterans we need to execute our revenue strategy, and to set us up for sustained growth for a long time to come.”