Marc DeBevoise, the former chief of CBS Interactive and a senior exec at Paramount, has been named president of OverDrive, the digital content distribution company backed by private equity firm KKR.
DeBevoise will also join OverDrive’s board of directors as the company looks to expand its global digital library ecosystem. The platform connects libraries, universities and schools with digital media, including ebooks, audiobooks and streaming video.
OverDrive operates several widely used consumer and education apps, including the ebook and audiobook service Libby, the student-focused reading platform Sora and the streaming video service Kanopy. Together, those products form one of the largest digital distribution networks serving public institutions and academic systems.
“Marc is a transformational leader who has scaled multiformat platforms serving millions of users,” said OverDrive founder and CEO Steve Potash in a statement announcing the appointment. Potash pointed to DeBevoise’s experience building direct-to-consumer and enterprise platforms as central to the company’s next phase of growth, including deeper content partnerships and continued product innovation.
DeBevoise most recently served as CEO of video technology company Brightcove. Earlier in his career, he held senior roles at CBS and Paramount, where he oversaw the company’s digital portfolio and played a key role in launching and scaling several streaming services. Those initiatives included Paramount+, which originally launched as CBS All Access, along with CBSN and CBS Sports HQ.
The appointment comes as OverDrive continues to expand usage across its digital platforms. In 2025, readers borrowed more than 860 million digital titles worldwide through Libby and Sora. Libraries and universities streamed more than 1.1 billion minutes of video through Kanopy during the same period. Both figures marked year-over-year growth from 2024 levels.
OverDrive’s catalog currently includes more than 5 million digital titles in more than 100 languages, along with a library of more than 40,000 streaming video titles. Rights for that content extend across more than 150 countries through the company’s global distribution network.
“OverDrive sits at a unique nexus of content, technology and public impact,” DeBevoise said in a statement. He added that the company’s mission centers on expanding access to content while strengthening the economics for the institutions it serves.
In addition to his new role, DeBevoise serves on the board of The Door, a New York-based nonprofit youth development organization, and teaches digital strategy as an adjunct professor at New York University.
The Streaming Wars is intentionally ad-free
We don’t run display ads. Not because we can’t, but because we don’t believe in them.
They interrupt the reading experience. They cheapen the work. And they burn advertisers’ money on impressions nobody actually wants.
So we chose a different model.
We say the things people in this industry are already thinking but don’t say out loud. We connect the dots beyond the headline and focus on explaining why things matter to the people working in this business.
If you believe industry coverage can exist without clutter and interruption, you can support it here → SUPPORT TSW.
Support is optional. But it directly funds research and continued coverage — and helps prove this model can work.
Support TSW →
