Who

JoAnn Ross is president of network sales at CBS, and the first woman to hold the top sales post at a major network.

Backstory

Brooklyn born Ross grew up on Long Island and graduated from American University before moving to Manhattan to work in retail at stores like Gucci and Lord & Taylor. After a stint living in Alaska with a boyfriend for a few years, she returned to New York and in 1980 took a job as an assistant at the ad firm Bozell & Jacobs. Over the course of a decade she rose through the ranks to become a senior vice president, eventually leaving to join ABC, where she sold ads during daytime soaps. In 1992, she joined CBS and was charged with spearheading sales for the network's broadcast of the Olympics. Evidently she did a good job: By the time her boss, Joe Abruzzese, left the company in 2002, she was the department's No. 2 and the obvious choice to replace him.

Of note

These are challenging times for sales chiefs at major networks. Although Ross has a solid historical track record since taking over—CBS has outpaced rivals NBC and ABC in ratings for the past few years thanks to perennial ratings winners like the CSI franchise, Survivor, and Without a Trace—the network has had trouble generating new hits. And while Ross raked in more dough from advertisers than any other network sales chief at 2007's upfronts (with the exception of Fox's Jon Nesvig), CBS's new slate hasn't delivered for the most part; new shows that debuted in the fall of 2007 like Cane, Viva Laughlin and Moonlight have failed to meet expectations. And then there's Katie Couric, who has struggled since arriving at CBS amid great fanfare in 2006. Still, Ross continues to mine the winners: She's reeled in massive product placement deals for shows like Survivor (from the likes of Snickers). And she's had a little bit less on her plate since UPN, whose sales efforts she was responsible for, was sold and merged with the WB in 2006.

On the job

Ross is responsible for selling ads across all of CBS's various divisions: entertainment, sports, daytime, news, and late night. As such, she works closely with the heads of each division including Nina Tessler, who heads up the entertainment division from LA, and Sean McManus, who is responsible for news and sports. Like Tessler and McManus, Ross works under CBS chief Les Moonves, and he's fond of his pitbull of a saleswoman: "Jo Ann can go into a room full of guys, drink a beer and hold her own with anybody."

For the record

Be sure not to confuse this JoAnn Ross with the romance novelist JoAnn Ross, the lady behind such magnum opi as Mackenzie's Woman and Hunk of the Month.

Personal

Ross is married to anesthesiologist Michael Zelman. They live on the Upper East Side.

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