After a year as the Chief Financial Officer at Nielsen, Jessica Holscott talks about the evolution of a CFO job’ description in the media and entertainment industry in her global-first interview, speaking exclusively with businessline. Having worked on the other side of the business, with giants like Warner Media, Holscott puts the ad measurement segment into perspective and talks about how the company plans to reinvest towards its products and solutions with India serving as the initial testing ground for innovation.
Has the CFO job moved beyond earnings numbers?
It has definitely shifted from more financial oversight to strategic leadership.
“How do we drive capital allocation towards innovation and growth to drive top line?” “Are we investing in the right products?” Evaluating ROI across fragmented media channels, partnering with the Board on long-term strategy – those are things I focus on every day as a CFO.
You came here after a short stint at Spotter, and Warner Media before that. How has the experience been?
I’m blessed to have spent so much of my career on the other side. I had the linear networks and I was a part of the HBO Max streaming platform launch. I understood the product workflows, which has been incredibly important while coming to Nielsen. I understood the customer workflows and how Nielsen’s products can solve some of the questions we were facing at WarnerMedia. For me, coming to Nielsen has been a a full circle moment. What it’s allowed me to do as a CFO is to ensure that there’s a product market for us.
Nielsen is over three years into private ownership under Elliot and Brookfield. How has the shift away from quarterly public reporting changed your capital allocation strategy?
Under private ownership, we’ve really transformed the business with key talent here in India — whether that’s in technology, product development or the finance team. This has allowed us to generate cash to reinvest back into the company, growth products that create future growth for Nielsen around streaming, ads products. Nielsen ONE Ads, Ad Intel and especially Gracenote, given the CTV expansion. Elliot and Brookfield have been incredibly supportive of investing in our products. They are helping us think through their capital allocation approach.
For Nielsen’s global strategy, what role does India play?
India is a key growth market for us. Given everything, it’s a complex market, frankly and a strategic hub for engineering, data science and analytics and finance. Given the nature of the media ecosystem, it’s becoming increasingly clear that we use this as a ‘test-and-learn’ country. If we can make it work here from a market fit standpoint, we can make it work in many other countries, given the complexity here in India. In global product innovation and development, we’re really testing a lot of our next-Gen measurement solutions here.
Are you thinking of expanding your workforce in India?
Very much so… as we continue to evolve our product suite, because this is where we are seeing the strength from a talent pool standpoint. There’s a good chance that we continue to increase the workforce in India. I’m incredibly impressed with the talent pool here, just on the velocity of work that happens in India. I’m incredibly impressed across the engineering, finance teams, all of the hubs that we have here. The talent pool here is world class.
Debt servicing is a significant line item, especially after the $16 billion buyout. With the interest rates remaining a focal point in 2026, what’s your current strategy for managing the company’s leverage?
We paid down debt, which has been a priority for us. We also refined our debt last year. We issued $1.2 billion notes in November 2025 and another $1.5 billion in January 2027. We also refinanced term loan B’s together, about $4.6 billion. Altogether, over $7 billion of debt refinanced in just the last half year. That generates interest savings for refinancing to reinvest back into ad products, streaming solutions and Gracenote. We also used proceeds from asset sales and cash on hand from strong free cash flow generation to pay down about $500 million of debt.
Nielsen One has been rolled out across various markets. As a CFO, what is the break-even point for this transition?
I don’t know if there’s necessarily a breakeven point where it’s a growth product for us. The growth is across advertisers, enabling smarter allocation of budgets between TV and digital. The growth is also for media platforms and agencies that require a single reliable dataset to plan campaigns.
What sustains your confidence in terms of staying competitive in the current market?
We have products that measure linear, streaming and both. Streaming-plus gives us the next leg of that journey, which is tracking apps viewing behaviour across, mobile and Connected TV. The CTV audience base grew 85 per cent last year and Gracenote provides the rich metadata for content discovery. Everything we do is in service of that evolving media landscape.
Nielsen suffered a reputation-hit due to a Media Rating Council suspension in the past. How much have you invested towards compliance and quality assurance to avoid such financial penalties or loss of client trust?
Quality is incredibly important for us. It’s an ongoing relationship in providing a quality product. Our clients see that value in what we are delivering based on the renewal rates and client retention as high as 99 per cent, a reflection of the trust that they have in the data.
Private equity firms typically look for an exit within five to seven years. Is the finance team preparing for a potential IPO return or a strategic sale to a tech giant?
We’re preparing for optionality whether that’s an IPO or strategic sale. We want to ensure we have strong revenue growth. We have incredible EBITDA margins, free cash flow generation.
Where will Nielsen’s next phase of growth come from? Is it core measurement or adjacent businesses like data and analytics and content discovery?
It’s going to come from a variety of areas. Streaming is going to be a massive growth driver for us. Sports, creators is another growth factor. From a product standpoint, the advertising products, the content discovery engine. There’s so much more content out there. As that content grows, it needs to be measured. AI will obviously be a component of all of this.
Any top three goals for the year going forward?
We will continue to invest towards being the leader in cross-platform audience measurement and digital ad effectiveness and content insights, tailored to meet the needs of the Indian marketers and broadcasters.