COLLEEN E. BURNS
Woodside,NY
Summary
Hands-on pricing, forecasting, and revenue strategy leader who personally builds the models the CFO and Sales leadership rely on for critical business decisions. Led strategy for a $100M+ portfolio and a 25-person organization spanning analytics, planning, pricing, and commercial operations. Known for finding hidden business risk, correcting flawed assumptions, and building capable teams.
Overview
1
1
Certification
30
30
years of professional experience
Work History
Vice President, Revenue Strategy, Pricing & Analytics
TV ONE / URBAN ONE
New York, NY
06.2016 - Current
- Own revenue planning, forecasting, pricing, and capacity strategy for a $100M+ portfolio. Translate demand, resource constraints, and customer commitments into operating targets and decisions for Sales and Finance. Oversee pricing, inventory, and post-sale delivery management, the levers that control revenue risk, and use them together to identify exposure early and limit its financial impact. Approve pricing exceptions and lead a 25-person organization across planning, analytics, pricing, and commercial operations.
- Drove 50% revenue growth from 2017 to 2022 by implementing pricing, forecasting, and capacity strategies to set targets and optimize inventory deployment.
- Identified and quantified $13.56M in delivery-related revenue exposure across four seasons; built a recovery and capacity-planning framework to help leadership evaluate obligations, available inventory, and future revenue risk.
- Build and continually update forecasting, pricing, and capacity models, translating changing business inputs into decision-ready scenarios, tradeoffs, and recommendations.
- Reduced shortfalls on affected campaigns by one-third by exposing a flaw in forecast assumptions and rebuilding projections around the capacity actually available to fulfill commitments.
- Lead quarterly close-to-forecast planning and annual business plans; reconcile actuals to targets, explain variances, and align Sales, Finance, Research, and Operations on shared assumptions.
- Led the cross-functional migration to a company-wide revenue platform, defining business requirements, redesigning pre- and post-sale workflows, coordinating vendors, and managing adoption through go-live.
- Integrate AI-assisted data auditing into forecasting and reporting workflows to accelerate validation and flag discrepancies, applying business judgment to catch where AI output falls short.
- Developed three direct reports from junior positions into Director and Senior Director roles, each now leading a team.
Senior Director, Ad Sales Finance
DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS
New York, NY
01.1997 - 11.2015
- Led forecasting, pricing, and capacity planning for national sales organizations representing more than $500M in annual revenue.
- Co-developed forecasting tool adopted as company standard, enhancing revenue growth and optimizing capacity utilization.
- Co-developed a forecasting tool adopted as the company standard for growing revenue while improving the use of available capacity.
- Partnered with yield management leaders to address delivery shortfalls and mitigate revenue exposure across national brands.
- Directed cross-functional teams for advertising, sales, and marketing initiatives.
- Directed cross-functional teams for advertising, sales, and marketing initiatives, aligning strategies to maximize overall effectiveness.
- Managed affiliate relations with cable, satellite, and digital distribution partners.
Education
M.A. - History
St. Johns University
Jamaica, NyB.A. - History & English
St. Johns University
Skills
- Forecasting & Scenario Modeling
- Revenue and Pricing Strategy
- Strategic & Operational Planning
- Capacity & Resource Allocation
- Performance & Variance Analysis
- Cross-Functional Leadership
- Systems & Process Transformation
- SOX Controls & Audit Support
- Talent Development
- Advanced Excel Modeling
- Salesforce
- Tableau
- BI Tools
- Data Reconciliation
- AI-Assisted Analysis & Workflow
Personal Information
Title: PRICING, FORECASTING & REVENUE STRATEGY LEADER
Certification
AI Fluency & Foundational Prompt Engineering Certificate Forma Media, 2025
EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS
Title: PRICING, FORECASTING & REVENUE STRATEGY LEADER
SELECTED IMPACT
Title: PRICING, FORECASTING & REVENUE STRATEGY LEADER
Timeline
Vice President, Revenue Strategy, Pricing & Analytics
TV ONE / URBAN ONE
06.2016 - Current
Senior Director, Ad Sales Finance
DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS
01.1997 - 11.2015
M.A. - History
St. Johns University
B.A. - History & English
St. Johns University