Peter Faricy calls time as Discovery D2C chief

Peter Faricy, the CEO of Discovery’s direct-to-consumer business, has resigned.

Faricy will leave the company on July 15 with his responsibilities to be assumed by three executives: chief technology officer, direct-to-consumer Avi Saxena; president US digital and product Marketing Karen Leever; and group SVP, Content and Commercial Strategy, direct-to-consumer Lisa Holme.

Discovery CEO David Zaslav sent a memo to employees, saying that Faricy’s decision is motivated by a desire to spend more time with his family. He wrote that the exec had “decided that now is the right time to leave Discovery,” and thanked him for his “personal sacrifices over the last 2 years.”

Faricy joined the company in 2018 from Amazon. Over the past two years, the exec oversaw Discovery’s streaming products including Discovery GO TV Everywhere products, as well as Motor Trend, Eurosport Player, Discovery Kids and Dplay.

With Faricy gone, Saxena will add Food Network Kitchen and Magnolia to her list of responsibilities while Leever will be handed Discovery’s app strategy in the US and UK. Meanwhile Holme will head up Discovery’s content and programming strategies around its aggregated apps and its partnership strategy.

Finally, Dplay and Discovery’s DTC sports products will now sit under Discovery International CEO JB Perrette.