Creative Planet Inc., an L.A.-based supplier of information and technology resources to the entertainment industry, has hooked former Amazon.com Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. executive Kelyn Brannon as the company’s new chief financial officer, a hiring that seems to be an endorsement of the Creative Planet business model.
Brannon will oversee all financial interests for the private company, which provides Hollywood film and television studios with software, hardware and services that help them manage productions.
Based on her experiences at Sun and Amazon, Brannon said she “knew where to poke around” and liked what she discovered at Creative Planet.
“First, I look for a strong management team,” she said. “The first person I met was (CEO) Allen DeBevoise, who is on a smart and strategic course. Overall, there are a lot of IQ points sitting around the table.”
The board includes chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, Jack Valenti; former Viacom Inc. CEO Frank Biondi Jr. and Homerstore.com Ince. CEO Sturart Wolff.
The hiring comes on the heels of layoffs at Creative Planet. The company handed out pink slips to 70 staffers, or 20 percent of its staff, in early December.
A few weeks before that, Creative Planet made headlines when it received a $30 million investment from London-based United News & Media PLC.
Brannon worked most recently as CFO for FortPoint Partners Inc., a San Francisco-based company that provides tech support to e-commerce companies, where she was employed for eight months.
She left FortPoint, she said, because it’s “a private company that does not have a need for a CFO at this time.”
Before FortPoint, Brannon was chief accounting officer of Amazon.com Inc. and CFO of Amazon.com International.
During her year at the Seattle online retailer, she worked closely with CEO and founder Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s aggressive CFO Joy Covey, who resigned in April.
Soon after Covey vacated her post, Brannon headed south for her stint at FortPoint, which offered her “a lead position.”
