Veteran Global News and Change Leader to Oversee the Reimagining

of Newly Combined Network, Digital and Local Stations’ News Operations

Veteran global news executive Ross Dagan has been named Executive Vice President, News Operations and Transformation, CBS News and Stations. The announcement was made today by CBS News and Stations Presidents and Co-Heads Wendy McMahon and Neeraj Khemlani.

In this newly created senior leadership role, Dagan will be responsible for reimagining and aligning the News Operations and Engineering functions across CBS News and Stations, which in April of this year began combining their journalistic and business resources to form a new division of ViacomCBS, jointly led by McMahon and Khemlani.

Dagan, who assumes his new responsibilities next month and will be based in New York, joins CBS News and Stations after having most recently served as Network Director of News Content at Network 10, the ViacomCBS-owned network based in Sydney, Australia, since 2018. While there, he oversaw major editorial and operational changes, positioning the network to optimize workflows and evolving technology around the cloud and artificial intelligence to improve processes.

“We are very pleased to welcome Ross to our CBS News and Stations family,” McMahon said. “As we continue the process of bringing together our wide portfolio of broadcast, streaming and digital resources, it is vital to have an inspiring organizational leader who is able to embrace the distinctive elements of our local, national and global news operations, break down silos, and manifest a modernized and maximized operations nucleus that will allow CBS News and Stations to become much greater than the sum of their individual parts.”

Khemlani added: “We are thoroughly impressed with Ross’ record of achievement as a change management leader and how he approaches newsgathering operations with an editorial point of view. He has successfully worked across international borders and different cultures to bring teams together and drive success in Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the Middle East. We look forward to having Ross leverage his experience in business, tech and newsgathering, as he works with the talented teams we already have in place to unify our efforts and strategize opportunities for future growth and innovation.”

“I am excited to have this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play a role in the unification and transformation of CBS’ local, national and global news organization,” Dagan said. “It will be a privilege to work with the people who have already made CBS’ network news, digital and local offerings best-in-class operations, and collectively chart a course for raising the bar in terms of how we manage newsgathering, align technology and create new workflows.”

A veteran of more than 20 years as a news executive, Dagan is currently serving his second tour of duty with Network 10. He previously was the network’s Director of News, based in Sydney and Brisbane, Australia, where he had day-to-day responsibility for the network’s news programming in those markets from 2007-2012.

Dagan’s background also includes a combined five years with Al Jazeera English, the first English-language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East. He most recently served as Executive Producer from 2015-2018. During that time, he was instrumental in the evolution of how editorial content was produced, presented and shared across platforms, launching the first new news programming in a decade. From 2006-2007, he served as Program Editor of Al Jazeera English, as a senior member of the leadership team in Kuala Lumpur that launched the network.

Dagan served two stints with the Seven Network in Australia, including as Director of News, based in Brisbane, from 2013-2015, and Director of News for Seven Queensland from 2001-2005.

His background also includes working for Television New Zealand (TVNZ) as Head of News and Current Affairs, Maori and Pacific Programs, based in Auckland, from 2012-2013.

Dagan earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern Queensland, then received his MBA from the Queensland University of Technology.

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