Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Chief Communications Officer Robert Lawson is being upped to SVP, Corporate Communications for the entire Sony Group. The new job will bring Lawson, a nine-year vet of the Culver City lot who was a key consigliere during the 2014 cyber-attack, to Sony HQ in Tokyo, Japan, reporting to Sony Group Corp Chairman and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida.Lawson’s successor will be named in the next few months. He’ll remain in Culver City for the next few months before heading to Japan. Lawson’s segue to the leadership team reflects the importance Sony is putting on its entertainment companies (movies, music, games) which rep 60% of the conglom’s overall profits. Big Sony wants the Tokyo HQ leadership team to reflect the global nature of its business and moving Lawson from US/Entertainment is part of that effort. Lawson led the comms team during a great period of turnaround for Sony Pictures Entertainment, read profit in 2016 was $280M when he arrived versus annual profit in 2022 of $894M. After being a consultant to SPE during the Sony Hack, Lawson was named CCO a few months later in Summer 2015.Lawson managed the comms team through a period of great change. In addition to Covid which forced the whole lot to work remote, the entire senior leadership changed during the exec’s first couple of years on the job (i.e. Chairman and CEO, Head of Motion Pictures, Head of Television, Head of Networks, CFO all changed). In addition, there was a vast restructuring of Sony’s television networks business. “Reimagine SPT” efforts divested unprofitable international networks, which went from over 100 channels to now about 30. While streaming, particularly during Covid, would up-end the entire entertainment industry, Sony remained steadfast to its theatrical distribution business, becoming an arms dealer of film and TV content, while its rivals invested billions in their own respective OTT services much to the dismay of debt.
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