Tammy Henault on Building Fandom, Trust & the Future of Media

In this episode of Breaking Through the Mayhem, host Adam Katz sits down with Tammy Henault, a transformational marketing leader whose career spans The New York Times, CBS/Paramount+, and the NBA—organizations that have reinvented themselves in the face of massive industry shifts.

Tammy shares how she has built her career at the crossroads of media, entertainment, and sports, stepping into roles during moments of disruption—from the launch of digital subscriptions and direct-to-consumer streaming to global sports innovation. Across every chapter, her success has been rooted in embracing change, building for what doesn’t exist yet, and staying relentlessly close to the audience.

The conversation dives into:

Transforming industries from the inside

How Tammy led marketing through pivotal transitions—NYT’s paywall era, Paramount’s leap into streaming, and the NBA’s launch of the In-Season Tournament—while driving global reach and daily cultural relevance.

Fandom as an always-on relationship

Why “marketing with fans, not to fans” fuels deeply personal engagement, and how local culture and access shape global audience growth.

Subscription models that scale

Why long-term success requires data, technology, and lifecycle design long before acquisition—and how infrastructure becomes the true engine of retention.

AI with humanity

Tammy’s take on AI’s promise: faster storytelling, smarter research, and personalized creative at scale—but with a warning against over-automation and content that loses authenticity.

Leadership through clarity and curiosity

Her philosophy of defining goals, championing empathy, celebrating wins and smart failures, and creating teams where everyone’s success rises together.

Tammy also opens up about what’s next: the collision of tech, fandom, and experiential storytelling — from consumer innovation and health & wellness to immersive cultural spaces that tap into how people truly connect.

With thoughtful candor and bold optimism, Tammy offers a compelling look at leading innovation across iconic brands—and why staying scrappy, human, and culturally fluent will define the future of marketing.

EPISODE 52 TRANSCRIPT

Adam Katz
Welcome back to Breaking Through the Mayhem, hosted by Sightly. Super excited today to have my friend and a legend, Tammy Henault. How are you?

Tammy Henault
Good. How are you?

Adam Katz
Thank you so much for joining us today.

Tammy Henault
Good to be here.

Adam Katz
So let's jump right into it, knowing that we want to make sure that we get to a lot of different great topics about you. So let's start with your path. You've worked across iconic entertainment brands, the NBA, Paramount, the New York Times, what's been the through line in your career and what's the advice that you would give others who want to follow in your footsteps?

Tammy Henault
Yeah. The through line of my career has been, you know, really working in media, entertainment and sports. At the intersection of moments where they were going through transformative change, whether that's, you know, an audience shift in magazine space from print to digital, at New York Times, it was at the dawn of the paywall.

I joined CBS when they were trying to figure out, you know, how to build a direct-to-consumer streaming service, built CBS All Access and launched that to Paramount Plus, and all of those steps, it was stepping into roles that, you know, were marketing products or experiences that didn't necessarily exist yet or were going to be new to the organizations that I was at. And I think a big part of that is also what helped me, you know, land at the NBA, right, was being able to navigate through times and periods of change. When I stepped into the NBA, it was about launching a new tent pole, the NBA cup, changing to new media distribution partners, growing internationally, and at each step of the way, it was just about trying something new and different and not being afraid of change.

Adam Katz
This week is the NBA cup. I'm hoping the Knicks take it down. At the NBA, you were marketing a global brand, like a live product, which is really a cultural juggernaut all at once.

It's a lot, right? So what were your biggest takeaways from your time at the league?

Tammy Henault
I always describe joining the NBA and stepping into the role as, you know, a treadmill already going at like level 10 and you're just trying to get on and keep up with the pace. It's global, it's live, you know, it's content pretty much daily and deeply cultural. And, you know, you're trying to make sure you're navigating and keeping the whole machine going all at the same time.

So for me, I have a few takeaways, but the first is that fandom is a living, breathing thing. We always said that, you know, we're in conversation with the fans, we're, you know, we're constantly alongside them, not marketing to them, right? We're being a fan ourselves and we're joining them in that conversation.

So I think that is something, you know, that I'll continue to take with me into other roles. This is probably one of the most global roles I've had, and I think global looks really different. I think it's easy to bucket global into one big thing.

But of course, in every area and every region, how do you ensure brand consistency, but also create space for the local culture to thrive? And we spent a lot of time trying to perfect that and making sure that our campaigns and our messaging was really tailored, but also had the strong brand presence shining through. And then last is really around the power of access.

The NBA, we spend a lot of time thinking about the membership ecosystems, our products, our platforms, and how do we get our fans as close to the content as possible? We would always say, right, the data shows that less than a percent, one percent of our fans will ever get to watch a live game. And so it was always about how do you bring them to the front door of our digital experiences?

You know, when we do have live and market experiences and that access is so crucial to building that fandom. And so, yeah, those are probably some of the key ones.

Adam Katz
And that dovetails really well into something else I was really curious about. So obviously you've been, you know, New York Times, Paramount, NBA, as we said, right, names that people know. And clearly at those places you've been scaling D to C platforms into these multi-billion dollar revenue streams.

What would you say is like, you know, to help our listeners to understand the secret to successfully doing that? And then how do you think about retaining audiences in subscription businesses? Because I know that's a challenge.

Tammy Henault
I spent 15 years in sort of various subscription worlds and subscription business models. And before pretty much everything became subscription, right? You can subscribe to Uber and food package boxes and I don't know, travel, etc.

And the thing that I found consistent across all the different businesses and companies is like. To power a subscription business, it's really important to have data, technology and infrastructure right first and foremost, you know, everybody goes to customer acquisition and ultimately right then from the engagement, retention and churn metrics. But I think at the core, you really need to understand how you're building that customer lifecycle from beginning to end and ensure like the infrastructure is set up to enable really smart, you know, customer journey building and marketing across the whole lifecycle.

So I think that's something that often either gets overlooked or is trying to get built at the same time. And, you know, I found organizations that are most successful who have that commitment to invest in the infrastructure and organizational design in addition to the marketing itself.

Adam Katz
That's awesome. You know, those are, that's really good advice. I mean, hearing a marketer say that is so crucial because that means you're working alongside the business in such a fair way.

You know, thinking about that, like obviously, you know, the big elephant in every conversation is centered around AI, right? And the automation of marketing. Somebody that's been through, you know, the evolutions, I'm sure this is just another one of those for you, right?

So what's exciting you and what are you most cautious about in the next phase?

Tammy Henault
Yes, every conversation converges back to AI and I think it's important because it's everywhere, right? At the core, I think AI is going to do incredible things. It unlocks speed, scale, it unlocks impact to, you know, exponential degrees than what people can do without using the various tools.

I'm excited. I think AI takes a lot of friction out of marketing, right? There's a lot of really interesting conversations around synthetic research and synthetic audiences for testing and personalization.

You can get to answers more quickly. And then creatively, it opens up new ways to tell stories, new ways to create content, the speed with which you can create things that are more relevant to people. All of that is good.

I think that there's a risk of like over-creating. I know at the NBA, we started.

Adam Katz
A lack of authenticity.

Tammy Henault
Yeah, like just creating more for the sake of being able to create more. I know we've created campaigns and set up a bunch of synthetic audiences to test different messages and tailor and personalize messaging. And at the end of the day, we created too many, right?

On the whole, there were some cohorts of those messages that underperformed what the kind of more general fan message would be. And so I think there is a risk of trying to over-tailor and over-automate everything. But at the core, everyone's trying to figure out how to culturally build an organization that's going to adopt AI and be fluent while looking at organizational design.

And I think there's just a lot of really big changes ahead. But I am optimistic overall. I just think we have to really be good at balancing the human touch against the autonomous work as well.

Adam Katz
Makes a lot of sense. And, you know, I've always been impressed with you, obviously, holding these big roles and then also being on boards like at the Ad Council and the MMA. What are the topics or shifts that are coming up most in those rooms?

I mean, there's the obvious ones that we just were discussing. What are some of the things that people don't realize everyone was discussing today?

Tammy Henault
Yeah. There's a lot of, I mean, we've talked about this, too. There's a lot of conversation around trust in general, right?

Trust in media, trust in platforms, trust in marketing, consumer trust, data, you know, how to ensure that we're protecting people's privacy. How do you ensure people know if something's not human in a largely algorithmic world? I think, you know, those are like those are big topics that that industry is grappling right now.

How do we ensure that we're going to capture the value out of tools and technology while remaining responsible as a whole? And I think the conversation is good. I don't know if everyone has the answer, but, you know, the questions being asked.

Adam Katz
It always starts with admitting you need to know something or do something, right?

Tammy Henault
Yeah.

Adam Katz
So you guys are going to get there, especially with people like you in the room. And also, you've worked across agencies, you know, you've been at platforms, league side, etc. How do you typically lead teams?

And for you, what is, what's the stays consistent no matter where you go?

Tammy Henault
Yeah, it's interesting because, I mean, I've definitely led, led large teams across a number of different types of organizations that all had really different cultures. And I think I try to keep my own leadership philosophy pretty consistent wherever I go, which is, you know, ensure there's clear clarity and direction and goals. Ensure that, you know, we're treating each other with empathy and thinking about the business in a way that is responsible and having conviction and trying new things and, you know, testing and innovating, right?

And not being afraid to fail. And I think teams work the best when you have the space to let the best ideas flow to the top. And, you know, celebrating the wins as well as celebrating the failures.

I definitely had the monthly marketing all-star award on my last team. And, you know, I proposed, I proposed like the opposite of the all-star award, sort of like the nice try award or something to be able to celebrate the failures as well. That didn't get a lot of traction.

People weren't as excited about that. But I think people should be. Maybe I needed to rebrand that award to something different.

But, yeah, I think like for me, the best teams that I've been a part of and the teams that I've been trying, you know, to foster wherever I go is the teams where people see, the people to your left and your right, those sitting around a table from you, that you're all working towards the same success, right? Like everyone else's success is your success. And teams that I think come around and see and help each other up and try to do something that's not going to only benefit sort of your line of work or your silo, but the whole organization are the ones that, you know, overperform.

Adam Katz
I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, like a real sports team leader coming from League side and, you know, think of that like you've always feel like you've been ahead of where everyone's going. Right.

Obviously, as you close this incredible last chapter in your career, you know, what spaces or stories are you kind of most drawn to next?

Tammy Henault
Yeah, I've been getting asked this question a lot. Obviously, I'm excited by a lot of things. I'm excited about, you know, spaces where tech and creativity and community collide.

Right. I'm really energized by stuff that's happening in consumer tech, especially the AI space. I think the opportunity to retell stories in different ways and build fandom and create personalized experiences at scale is going to, you know, accelerate faster than we've ever seen before.

And so. That makes me bullish also on experiential, right, experiential, I think people still want to have live moments and immersive experiences. And so I know I love the idea of something that is going to be at the forefront of using technology to build experiential moments, whether that's in entertainment, in a sports adjacent space.

I think really interesting stuff happening in health and wellness right now, like new technology, new devices, new rituals, new medications that are helping people manage their lives. So I think that's an area that I find interesting. I love fashion, music, travel.

I love brands that understand culture, want to take big swings to do big marketing. There's just there's a lot. I feel like the world is really an exciting place right now.

So you'll loop back asking again and we'll see if it changes or not.

Adam Katz
One thing I know about you is you'll find your way. You're a scrappy person who will always find their way. Getting to know you has been amazing.

And, you know, one of the questions I love to ask my guests, typically in closing, is what would you if you had a chance to go to dinner with somebody who is not alive or is alive? Let's go with alive and is not in your family. Who would it be?

It gives me a little glimpse into your thought process.

Tammy Henault
Yeah. So I was just working on Christmas cards, I'm sure, at that time of the year. And the biggest thing that is wrapped around my family this year has got to be K-pop Demon Hunters, like it's nonstop, the like the top of my wrapped, you know, lit, like golden, you know, my kids, Halloween, all the costumes. So I would have to go to dinner with Huntrix. The ladies of Huntrix and bring their girls around and be the best mom of the year.

Adam Katz
That's awesome. Yeah, I saw them just absolutely rock it at the Thanksgiving Day parade. My daughter was singing the whole entire song.

Well, listen, thank you so much, Tammy, for being on Breaking Through the Mayhem today. I think our audience is blessed to hear your opinions, your thoughts, and they're going to learn a lot from today. So thank you for joining me.

Tammy Henault
Thanks for asking such thoughtful questions and I appreciate it.

Adam Katz
Have the best day.

Tammy Henault
You too. Bye.