Dass Gerhard Zeiler seine Zukunft nach der Zusammenführung von Paramount und Warner Bros. Discovery nicht im Skydance-Konzern sieht, ist nicht nur wegen seines Alters keine Überraschung: Der mittlerweile 71-Jährige hatte unlängst seine Ambitionen in der österreichischen Politik öffentlich gemacht und Interesse am SPÖ-Vorsitz bekundet. Auch wenn er davon inzwischen wieder Abstand genommen und Unterstützung für einen anderen Kandidaten signalisiert hat: Sein Abschied von Skydance ist nun offiziell.

In einem internen Schreiben an seine Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter kündigte er sein Ausscheiden aus dem Unternehmen Ende kommender Woche an. Für Zeiler endet damit eine 15 Jahre dauernde Ära, in der er mehrere große Wandlungen des Unternehmens mitgemacht hat. Als Zeiler 2012 dazu stieß, hieß der Konzern noch Time Warner, Gerhard Zeiler übernahm die Verantwortung für Turner International - eine Marke, die heute längst Geschichte ist.

2014 wurde Time Inc. abgespalten, 2018 kam die Übernahme durch den Telekommunikationskonzern AT&T und die Umbenennung des Mediengeschäfts in WarnerMedia, 2022 schließlich wurde WarnerMedia von Discovery geschluckt. Zuletzt arbeitete der Konzern erst an einer erneuten Aufspaltung und war dann in einem Übernahmekampf zwischen Netflix und Paramount gefangen. Allen Wandlungen zum Trotz blieb Zeiler aber eine personelle Konstante und verantwortete bis zuletzt das internationale Geschäft.

In einem persönlichen und durchaus emotionalen Schreiben drückte er seinem Team zum Abschied nun seine "tief empfunden Dankbarkeit" aus - für das Engagement und die Arbeit der letzten Jahre, aber auch für "die Bereitschaft zusammenzustehen, wenn es schwierig wird". Danken wolle er heute daher nicht zuallererst für die erbrachten Leistungen, sondern dafür, wie sich die Leute bei Warner Bros. Discovery verhalten haben: "Erfolg lässt sich leicht teilen, wenn alles gut läuft. Charakter zeigt sich erst, wenn das nicht der Fall ist. Und die letzten vier Jahre waren alles andere als einfach."

Zeiler zählt in seinem Schreiben auch auf, unter welchen sich immer wieder ändernden Vorgaben die Teams garbeitet hätten. "Manchmal standen die Prioritäten in Konkurrenz zueinander. Manchmal änderte sich die Strategie. Manchmal sahen Entscheidungen, die wir heute trafen, sechs Monate später anders aus, weil sich die Welt um uns herum erneut gewandelt hatte. Und manchmal, das weiß ich, haben wir schlichtweg zu viel verlangt." Trotzdem hätten seine Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter immer Ergebnisse geliefert. Vor allem habe er während dieser Zeit Integrität, Anstand, Loyalität und Solidarität erlebt. 

Die komplette Mail von Gerhard Zeiler im Wortlaut:

Dear All,

I have started writing this message several times, and each time I stopped.
Perhaps because after so many years, it is surprisingly difficult to find the right words to say goodbye. At the end of next week, I will leave the company. Some of you, I have known for four years. With many of you, I have worked for seven years. And with some of you, I have shared almost fifteen years of my professional life. 
Fifteen years.
When I think about everything that has happened during those years—in our company, in our industry, in the world, and in our own lives—I realize just how much we have experienced together. And that is why this is not simply the end of a job for me. 
I want you to know how profoundly grateful I am.
I have spent much of my professional life in leadership positions, and I have learned one thing above all: titles matter much less than people think. 
What matters are the people around you.
Their character. Their commitment. Their courage. Their willingness to take responsibility. And their willingness to stand together when things get difficult. 
And this is what has made all of you so special to me.
Your integrity. Your work ethic. And your solidarity.
There were many years when we asked an extraordinary amount of you.
We asked you to protect and manage our linear businesses and make them as efficient and successful as possible—even as the entire industry was moving in a different direction. 
At the same time, we asked you to build and strengthen our streaming business and to embrace a future that none of us could completely predict. 
We asked you to sell our content successfully to third parties, even while we were increasingly using that same content to build our own platforms. 
We asked you to help our Theatrical colleagues grow their international businesses and to support Consumer Products in bringing our extraordinary franchises and characters to consumers around the world. 
And often we asked you to do all of these things at the same time.
Sometimes the priorities competed with one another. Sometimes the strategy changed. Sometimes decisions taken today looked different six months later because the world around us had changed again. 
And sometimes, I know, we simply asked too much.
But you kept going. You adapted. You found solutions. You supported one another.
And you delivered. Again and again and again.
I will never forget it.
As leaders, we often thank people for their performance. We thank them for delivering a budget, launching a product, growing a business or completing a transformation. 
Today I want to thank you for something more important.
I want to thank you for the way you behaved when things were difficult.
Success is easy to share when everything is going well. Character shows itself when it isn't. And the last four years were anything but easy years. 
I saw integrity. I saw decency. I saw loyalty—not blind loyalty to a company or to a leader, but loyalty to colleagues and to the teams around you. And I saw solidarity. 
For me, that matters more than any financial result we ever delivered.
There are many things I will remember. 
I will remember all of you I met in São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Mexico City; in London, Paris, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen and Warsaw; across the Middle East and Central Eastern Europe; in Singapore, Tokyo and throughout Asia; in New York, Los Angeles and so many other places. 
The conversations in offices. The dinners after long days. The calls very early in the morning and very late at night. The airport lounges. The difficult meetings. The moments when we knew something had gone wrong—and the wonderful moments when we knew we had achieved something special together. 
Those are the things I will remember.
Not the PowerPoints. Not the budgets. Not the organization charts.
What I will remember is YOU
There are thousands of you receiving this message, and I wish I could thank every single one of you personally. 
Because whatever we achieved, we achieved together.
Leadership is not about having all the answers. It is about surrounding yourself with people who are better than you at many things, trusting them, challenging them, listening to them—and then trying to create an environment in which they can succeed. 
You made me a better leader. You also made me a better listener.  And, on more than a few occasions, you made me change my mind. 
Now it is time for me to leave.
And while I am excited about the next chapter of my life, I would be lying if I said leaving you was easy. 
It isn't.
I will miss you.

It has been one of the greatest privileges of my professional life to work alongside you.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Yours
Gerhard