Jose Tolosa has never been one to follow a predictable path. After more than two decades shaping the media and entertainment landscape, from corporate boardrooms to creative studios, he now takes on a new challenge as Senior Advisor at AlixPartners. In this role, he joins the firm’s Media & Entertainment and Leisure industry teams, as well as its cross-industry Transformation group, helping leaders navigate an era of rapid evolution.
Tolosa’s move is a natural continuation of a career built on guiding organizations through pivotal moments. His reputation stems from a proven ability to bridge creativity and structure, fostering transformation that balances cultural integrity with commercial performance. At AlixPartners, he will draw from experience that spans the executive suites of ViacomCBS and the creative corridors of Meow Wolf, advising on strategies that connect people, purpose, and performance.
From Global Networks to Immersive Worlds
Prior to his advisory role, Jose Tolosa was the Chief Executive Officer of Meow Wolf, as the company stretched the imaginative storytelling horizon. Under his leadership, Meow Wolf continued its growth with new exhibitions in Texas and preparing for significant launches behind the curtain in Los Angeles and New York, initiating development of new experiences across digital content, mobile and gaming. He championed making Meow Wolf a platform for transmedia experiences that blurred the line between the creator and the audience.
Tolosa also led Meow Wolf through its re-certification as the first B-Corp among major themed entertainment companies, a major accomplishment that reflected his commitment to aligning creative practices with broader organizational values. The company also earned a spot on Fast Company’s “World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies” reflecting Meow Wolf’s thoughtful evolution over flashy disruption.
A Decade Defining Global Transformation at ViacomCBS
Prior to Meow Wolf, Jose Tolosa established his distinguished career at Viacom and most recently ViacomCBS, where he was Chief Transformation Officer. During this tenure Tolosa served as a key leader to unify two large media brands under one vision. The merger introduced significant integration complexity and the cultural challenge of harmonizing two distinct operations as one global brand system. This warranted rethinking leadership hierarchy across regional, commercial, and creative priorities, as well as the integration of global operations.
Tolosa’s immediate focus on getting to clarity and creating a sense of inclusion with key senior executives and regional teams contributed to the deployment of a synergy plan that modernized various systems and resource allocation to rebuild a sense of confidence in venerable brands. His belief was that cost actions must be tied to strategic priorities and future audience behavior.
As COO of Viacom International Media Networks earlier in his career, Tolosa led the operations of Viacom properties in over 175 countries. Among other things, he led the expansion into emerging markets, and more strongly aligned the global divisions. For Tolosa, the experience highlighted how cultural diversity, applied across global teams, formed a strategic advantage in a media environment that is increasingly interconnected.
Aligning Purpose With Professional Growth
As Tolosa enters his new advisor position at AlixPartners, he comes not only with a resume of accomplishments as an executive and thought leader but also with a high degree of purpose. “I’m excited to partner with visionary leaders to guide their organizations through change, fuel growth, and build inclusive and future-forward companies.” His partnership with leaders like Jeff Goldstein (Managing Director) exemplifies their collective goal of influencing clients to transition and adjust to disruptive industry change, while remaining focused on the importance of long-term value creation.
The media landscape facing today’s organizations is challenging – audiences are segmented, media are distributed/disintermediated, technology is complicated, and pressure for cultural relevance creates internal pressure for constant cultural relevance. Tolosa brings both the insight and decisiveness to help organizations navigate the changes taking place, based on his executive experience and change experience at the intersection of creativity and corporate transformation.
Tolosa appreciates that the current entertainment ecosystem is no longer simply the delivery of content. It is the engagement of audiences to ideas, across platforms, and with the people using them. Whether it is identifying global mergers or creative platform growth strategies, Tolosa’s focus is always on cultivating organizations that understand audiences, stay nimble and ethical, and keep people at the center.
A Thoughtful Approach to Decision-Making
Colleagues frequently describe Jose Tolosa as calm amid the chaos, which he links to a level of preparation and healthy perspective. He describes clarity of objectives and the degree to which he sticks to first principles when the decision becomes difficult. In those moments, he recalls once saying, “there’s always going to be noise… but the key is separating what’s urgent from what’s important.”
This clarity was crucial in some of Tolosa’s hardest professional moments, including leaving Meow Wolf. Following years in high-intensity leadership roles, he realized he wanted to better align his time with family and personal priorities.
This decision captures a really personal and consistent thread of Tolosa’s journey: the willingness to reassess what success looks like at the stage of life. To Tolosa, success isn’t defined by career milestones or transitions, it is defined by integrity, presence and also parlaying that into the ability to help others grow. This perspective resonates no matter what sphere of leadership you might serve in, especially in hypercompetitive, fast-moving spaces.
Why AlixPartners and Why Now
The media industry is experiencing a significant change driven by forces including technology disruption, audience behavior and thinking, and broader contemplation about the process of storytelling. AlixPartners, a firm that helps its clients navigate leaders through business transformations with high stakes, is an ideal place for Tolosa to exercise and explore his experience of both strategic and creative environments.
Through the firm, Tolosa has a new role that will allow him to catalyze the industry and shape the next chapter in the media space while staying true to himself in what matters most to his life and work: partnership, purpose, and interest and impact on the human experience.
His professional background combining corporate rigor and creative empathy is a remarkable strength that distinguishes him as a leader between evolving business strategy and the human experience. Jeff Goldstein, Managing Director at AlixPartners said about Tolosa’s addition to the team, “Jose brings a unique combination of creative vision and operations perspective, having previously been a key connector at Meow Wolf, where he helped lead the company in creating groundbreaking immersive experiences, and as a business transformation lead at ViacomCBS, he helped drive change globally. We’re excited to leverage his insight and help shape the future of media and entertainment.”
The Next Chapter: Building Connection Through Change
Jose Tolosa begins this new chapter with a view of balance: ambition and humility, action and reflection. His career shows that change rooted in empathy and clarity can be a strategy for business and personal philosophy.
In an age when organizations race for speed, Tolosa uses a fairly deliberate approach. He reminds fellow practitioners and aspiring leaders that meaningful change is often the result of internal patience, collaboration and remaining true to values. His evolution was never one of reinvention; it was about consistently staying true to a purpose.
In his role as an advisor at AlixPartners, Jose has articulated a central mission: to help organizations and individuals change together, while remaining anchored in who they are. Whether in the boardroom, studio or classroom, the underlying lesson remains—success is not only about what you achieved, but how you achieved it.
Staying Grounded While Shaping the Future
Though Tolosa is helping firms through transformation, he is also grounded in the same principles and practices that have guided him along the way from Puerto Rico to a leading role globally: family, authenticity, and curiosity.
In the future, his work at AlixPartners will change the way companies in the media space think about growth, inclusion, and reinvention. For all that he has learned, Tolosa continues to see himself as a student of others, of culture and possibility. His leadership is marked by clarity, discipline and compassion, and serves as a guidebook for what a contemporary transformation can look like if steered by purpose and not pressure.
His story, in many ways, shares characteristics with the wider media landscape that he has played a part in shaping: evolving, introspective, and continuously expanding.
