Leslie Kilgore

Leslie Kilgore has served as chief marketing officer at Netflix since 2000.

Leslie came to the company with more than a decade of consumer products and e-commerce marketing experience at premier brands in packaged goods and online retailing. She believes that success results when superior products and superior value are offered to the consumer and has made this the underpinning of her career.

Rapid, cost-effective subscriber acquisition is Leslie's principal mission at Netflix. During her tenure, she has grown the Netflix subscriber base from fewer than 100,000 to 6.8 million. Since Leslie joined the company, Netflix has evolved from a Bay Area phenomenon to a nationally distributed service ranked five consecutive times since 2005 as the #1 online retailer for customer satisfaction by independent researchers ForeSee Results and FGI Research. In January 2007 Netflix was named Innovator of the Year for 2006 by the National Retail Federation and in October 2005 Fast Company magazine named Netflix the #1 customer experience in American business.

Knowing when to engage marketing channels based on the careful balance of cost and reach has been critical to growing membership both exponentially and profitably. Beginning first with online advertising and public relations designed to build off of the virulent enthusiasm of Netflix members and now including national TV advertising, her efforts have sought to evangelize a better, more convenient and more cost effective way to rent movies. The success of these efforts are underscored by the fact that more than 90 percent of trial members convert to paying subscribers and more than 90 percent of those tell family and friends about the service.

As a brand manager for The Procter & Gamble Co. from 1992 to 1999, Leslie oversaw the $600 million Pantene and the $150 million Head and Shoulders brands. From 1999 to mid-2000, she served as director of marketing for Amazon.com – responsible for increasing the size, loyalty and profitability of the customer base – during a time in which online retailing enjoyed explosive growth and established itself as a mainstream consumer channel.

Leslie has a Master's degree from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor's degree from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.