Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Dick Cook is launching Dick Cook Studios, a new media company. Citic Guoan Group Co. Ltd., a division of the Chinese conglomerate Citic Group will invest $150 million. Cook was formerly a chairman of Disney from 2002 to 2009 and spent a total of 40 years at the studio. Per the announcement the new venture will focus “on the production, marketing and distribution of multi-generational family entertainment including live-action and animated motion pictures as well as television, digital/mobile product, video games, stage plays and related licensing.”

Media powerhouse Gannett is splitting its company. Their share of big-market network affiliates (largest in the U.S.) will now be under the name Tegna while its newspaper publishing assets will remain under the Gannett name. Tegna will be traded publicly under the symbol TGNA.

Modern Family’s Vali Chandrasekaran has signed a two-year overall deal with 20th Century Fox Television. As part of the deal he will remain co-EP next season and will be promoted to executive producer the following season. His overall deal with ABC Studios is set to expire next month.

STX Entertainment has named Horizon Media its “agency of record” and will handle its media planning and buys, strategy, research and analytics and partnerships with promotions across all platforms with an estimated media budget of $350-400 million per year. EVp Serena Duff, Senior VPs Eric Geiger and Erin Foxworthy will oversee the account for Horizon. At STX, Amy Elkins who oversees media and marketing innovation will run point and collaborate with worldwide digital marketing and technology head Andrew Runyon on strategy.

Leftfield Entertainment, founded by Montgomery in 2013, houses Leftfield Pictures, Sirens Media, Loud TV and Outpost Entertainment has launched a new production company, Riot Creative. Stephanie Angelides will serve as president to develop television programming with a focus on digital platforms. She was previously SVP of Development for All 3 Media’s production company, Optomen.

Matthew Shreder and James Andrew Felts have left Continental Media to form the new entertainment venture Concourse Media. Funded by private equity group MCG, their divisions will include film sales under Concourse Film Trade and a marketing firm under The Industry & Co. Concourse Film Trade, to package and acquire movies for worldwide distribution and pre-buy rights to U.S. distributed films. They also have plans to launch Concourse Pictures as a distribution arm to acquire and release an estimated three films a year in the U.S.

Film

Cathy Schulman is moving to STX Entertainment and will oversee production on an estimated 12 to 15 films on their slate as well as feature development. STX snagged her from Mandalay Entertainment where she previously oversaw their production slate for eight years.

Paramount Pictures has appointed Jill Brody to Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing Partnerships & Brand Integration and will report to LeeAnne Stables, President of Consumer Products & Executive VP, Worldwide Marketing Partnerships. In her new post, Brody will be responsible for securing global marketing partners, developing opportunities and managing brand integration for Paramount’s theatrical releases. Previously, she served Paramount Pictures as a consultant through her own firm for more than 13 years.

Christopher Tricarico is now the EVP, Business Affairs and General Counsel, Broad Green Pictures. He was previously the Founding Partner of Tricarico Chavez LLP.

TV

BET Networks has picked Zola Mashariki as their new EVP and head of original programming. She hails from Fox Searchlight where she was a production executive. She will handle scripted and unscripted programming and development as well as casting for the cable network, reporting to BET Networks president of programming Stephen Hill.

Susan Kesser is the new VP of Media Relations at FX Networks, she was previously Executive Director, Publicity at Warner Bros. Television.

Sales and Marketing EVP Sean Bratches will end his 27-year career at ESPN at year’s end. He’ll serve in what the network calls “an advisory capacity” until then. During his tenure he led the distribution effort for ESPN HD and helped launch WatchESPN in 2010.

Eric Norsoph is the new head of development and production at Jim Parsons’ shingle, That’s Wonderful Productions. He was previously a CE at Paramount Insurge.

Longtime producer Chris Brancato has signed an overall deal with ABC Studios. Under the deal, Brancato will be the EP of ABC drama pilot Of Kings And Prophets. Previously Brancato’s partnership with Bert Salke was based at ABC Studios under Brancato/Salke for six years until 2010. Brancato recently executive produced Hannibal.

Jonitha Keymoore is now the Director of Program Sales at 4K Media, a production company currently owned by Konami and formerly a subsidiary of 4Kids Entertainment. Keymoore was previously the Director of Acquisitions at Cinedigm.

Bilai Joa Silar is the new SVP of programming and production for NBC Universo in Miami where he was previously stationed as VP of content for Discovery U.S. Hispanic Networks.

Fox Broadcasting has nabbed Ariff Sidi to be their new senior VP of digital products and platforms. He previously co-founded the social-video startup Mainstream, and founded Pairental, a technology startup develop parental controls for apps. He will report to David Wertheimer, Fox’s president of digital, and will be responsible for developing programs and products designed to up the performance of programming across nonlinear platforms.

Reality and scripted production company DiGa named Michael Maniaci as Director of Programming and Development. Maniaci was previously Development Executive at CMT.

Management, PR, Agencies

In a move to rebuild their comedy department after the shake-up, CAA has snagged two assistants from management-production company Mosaic. Luke Esselen and Molly Mandel will join CAA’s motion picture talent department as agents.

Veteran ICM Partners agent Meredith Wechter, whose clients include Josh Gad and Wonder Woman’s Gal Gadot, has parted ways with the agency. She hasn’t confirmed plans to move to another agency as of press time.

Jackie Knobbe has been promoted to partner at APA where he is the SVP of Comedy Touring.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Kelsey Balance, previously a manager of original programming at Pivot will now be the manager of content, digital enterprises at NBCUniversal.

Previous head of U.S. Hispanic Audience Sales for Google in Miami, Mark Lopez is the new EVP, general manager for Univision Digital and will remain in Miami.

Nancy Tellem, previously the President, Xbox Entertainment Studios is now the Executive Chairman, Chief Media Officer at Interlude, a start-up focused on interactive music videos founded in 2010 by the Israeli rock star Yoni Bloch.

Longtime visual effects specialist Richard Kidd, with credits on Titanic, Matrix and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will be Artemple-Hollywood’s new creative director and senior VFX supervisor. Artemple also hired award-winning commercial director Scott McCullough as in-house director and cinematographer.

Mercury Radio Arts, Glenn Beck's media company, has promoted Jonathan Schreiber to president. He was previously the head of strategy and special projects. As president, Schreiber will oversee the company's digital, radio and publishing assets, and he will consult on Beck's news site TheBlaze and its TV operation.

Creative content studio Framestore promoted Christine Cattano to Executive Producer of the Virtual Reality Studio. Previously, Cattano had been Producer.

Epic Rights has promoted Lisa Streff to Executive Vice President, Global Licensing.

Trixie Ferguson Gray has been recruited as MediaCom‘s Senior Partner, Branded Content & Experiences.  Gray was previously at Maxus, a GroupM sister agency.

Johanna Maska, who previously was a Barack Obama staffer for eight years beginning with his campaign, has been named VP of Marketing and Communications for the Los Angeles Times.

Domenica Alioto has been promoted to senior editor at Penguin Random House where she was previously an editor.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Joel Silver is joining Canadian entrepreneur Daryl Katz to form Silver Pictures Entertainment, a new venture that will develop, produce and provide or arrange financing for its own slate of feature films, TV and digital projects. Hal Sadoff has been named the CEO; he was previously head of International & Media Finance at ICM Partners, before leaving in 2012. Under the deal Silver will continue with the projects previously set up at Warner Bros. including a third Sherlock Holmes film, a sequel to Project X, Logan’s Run and The Nice Guys which will release on May 20, 2016. Katz’s Katz Group which covers sports, entertainment and real estate will assist in expanding SPE’s entertainment platform.

NBCUniversal is partnering with AOL and will provide video clips from its networks including NBC and USA to AOL’s streaming platform starting this summer. They plan to co-develop original videos for both of their Web platforms and potential weekly live programming as well.

Vice Media will be getting their own cable channel as A+E Networks rebrands their channel H2 into Vice. A+E has a 10% stake in Vice Media in a $250 million valued deal, led by A+E Networks topper Nancy Dubuc.

Weinstein Co-president of acquisitions Mark Gooder and former Focus Features International head Alison Thompson have partnered to create Cornerstone Films, a production-finance and sales company with offices in LA and London. The company will make its sales debut at Cannes this year and focus on both wide releases and indies. As part of the deal, Cornerstone partnered with Potboiler Films in London and X Filme in Berlin to begin filling the pipeline with up to two films a year for financing and sales.

Comedy writer-producer Kristin Newman has inked a two-year overall deal with ABC Studios. She’s the current EP/showrunner on ABC Studio’s comedy pilot, Delores and Jermaine. She’s served as co-EP on ABC Studios comedy series The Neighbors and Galavant.

ITV Studios Global Entertainment has inked a deal with Monumental Television for a minority stake in the company and to exclusively distribute all their television productions. The indie production house was formed last fall and founded by Oscar nominated producers Alison Owen and Debra Hayward.

FILM

Scott Bedno has been named VP of International Sales & Distribution, Voltage Pictures. He was previously president of international at Spotlight Pictures. John Fremes will be President of International Sales & Distribution at Voltage, he was previously president of International Sales & Distribution at Nu Image / Millennium Films.

Andrew Walter is in a newly created role at MGM as EVP of Corporate Development. He previously worked with MGM and other entities as managing director at investment company Evolution Media Partners. He will report to chairman and CEO Gary Barber and handle corporate and business development, acquisitions, investments and strategic transactions in film and TV.

Sarah Bremner will become an executive of Original Film Group at Netflix in early May, she was previously director of Creative Affairs at A+E Studios.

Jeffrey Greenstein takes over as president of International Sales & Distribution, Nu Image / Millennium Films, upped from the VP position.

Kate Ritter has been upped to creative executive at Bold Films, from the assistant level.

Taylor Zea has been promoted to the creative executive position at Thunder Road Pictures, up from assistant.

Mitra Darab is the new SVP of marketing for Capitol Music Group, he moved from the VP position of marketing at Warner Bros. Records.

TV

Chip Sullivan has been named EVP of communications at NBC Entertainment. He left DreamWorks Animation where he was head of global brand integration & publicity.

Matthew Wiseman has been upped to COO of BAFTA LA, he was previously director of operations.

Craig Cegielski has been named the Co-CEO of FremantleMedia North America, upped from his EVP of Scripted Programming position there. He will be joined by Jennifer Mullin who’s also been named a Co-CEO, she was previously the EVP of Current Programming. Colleen Mende has been named director of research, upped from manager.

Danny Feldheim has been promoted from manager to director of Drama, development and programming at FOX Broadcasting Company.

Jonathan Goldberg has been upped from VP to Director of Post Production at A. Smith & Co. Productions.

Jamie Horowitz will be in a newly created post as President of Fox Sports National Networks. Previously he was an ESPN executive. In the new role he will handle programming, marketing and scheduling for Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 and oversee management and development of original programming and day-to-day operations for Fox Sports 1’s news and studio programs.

Sharoan R. Harris has been promoted from VP to SVP of Pricing & Planning at Fuse Media, Inc. in New York.

Michael Maniaci has been named the director of programming and development at DiGa (NY), he was a development executive at CMT previously.

Zola Mashariki will be the EVP and head of original programming of BET Networks. She was snagged from Fox Searchlight where she was the SVP of production.

Ken Segna has been upped to SVP of original programming at Starz where he was the VP.

Management, PR, Agencies

CAA promoted the following trainees to the agent level: Olivia Blaustein/Hannah Kuzniecky/Matt Olson (TV), Sam Bringardner (Motion Picture Talent), Rhys Broussard/Josh Rahm (Motion Picture), Tommy Bruce/Ben Coles/Caitlin Davidson/ Kasey McKee/Spencer Sherman/ Emily Wright (Music), Roman Di Somma/Matt Elefant/ Heather Grosz (Sports), Kevin Lin (Theatre), Adam Paulsen (Film Finance). In addition Sylvia Friedel, Farrell Ulrich and Chris Yenn have been promoted to executive levels in marketing. Giselle Leon has been promoted to Executive in CAA’s Lifestyle department.

Luke Esselen has been swooped up by CAA and named an agent in their Motion Picture Talent department, he was previously an assistant at Mosaic.

Harold Frogét is the latest to make the move from CAA to UTA. She will be in the touring department, which was her department at CAA.

Jennifer McCann has been named VP of Operations for Forefront Media Strategies, she was previously the sr. coordinator at TNT Originals.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Erik Huggers has been named president and CEO of online music-video distributor Vevo. With 20 years experience in digital media, his most recent role was as senior VP at Verizon Communications. He takes over for Vevo founding CEO Rio Caraeff, who left late last 2014.

Jordan Bortolotti has been named the new Executive Vice President, Collective Digital Studio in their Toronto offices. She was previously the director of digital solutions at Blue Ant Media in that city.

Warner Bros. Blue Ribbon Content in charge of creating new live-action, short-form content for digital outlets has added to its team. Peter Girardi has expanded his role as SVP of creative affairs at Warner Bros. Animation to include Blue Ribbon Content. He will report to Blue Ribbon president Sam Register. Zoe Friedman will be named SVP of Development and handle development and production of comedy series. Lance Sloane will be the VP of development and production, shifting from WB’s home entertainment department. Alexandra Davis will be the director of development & production, she was previously a producer at DreamWorks Animation-owned AwesomenessTV

Ben McLean is the new SVP of digital enterprises at NBCUniversal, snagged from business affairs at Xbox Entertainment Studios where he was also SVP.

Andy Schuon has been named partner of Ocho, a social video startup. He will assist in shaping the company's content strategy and expand entertainment industry relationships in LA as their headquarters are in New York. Ocho is funded by investors that include Mark Cuban and the company debuted last winter. The app allows people to share eight-second videos that play in a continuous stream on their homepage.

Dan Silver is joining ABC News as Executive Producer of ABC News Digital. He will oversee the digital editorial team and work closely with Colby and Subrata to create, produce and develop new forms of journalistic storytelling and further engage our growing digital audience.

Peter Hamby will be heading the news department at SnapChat. He was previously a CNN national political reporter. He will still be featured on CNN, but now as a head at SnapChat.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Three of First Artists Management have left to form Fortress Talent Management. Robert Messinger, the owner and partner of First Artists is a principal at Fortress. Randy Gerston has been made a principal as well, up from his title of talent agent at First Artists. Rich Jacobellis also joins Fortress as a principal. He was previously a partner at First Artists. Based out of Calabasas, the full-service boutique agency, like First Artists, will represent composers and music supervisors for visual media.

Producer Dan Sterling has inked a two-year overall deal with 20th Century Fox Television. Under the pact, the former The Office EP will join the studios’ series The Last Man On Earth as EP and showrunner, taking over showrunner duties for series creator and star Will Forte. Sterling will EP the series with Forte, Chris Miller & Phil Lord.

Writer/director Nick Weiss has inked a two-year overall deal with ABC Studios to develop for network and cable as well as direct existing ABC series and future pilots. Weiss nabbed the attention of ABC executives with his pilot ‘found footage’ style Family Reunion. On the features side Weiss, repped by WME and Apostle’s George Heller, directed and co-wrote (with brother Tony) the micro-budgeted comedy Drunk Wedding for Paramount Insurge, to be released May 22.

Alex Cary has signed a two-year overall deal at Universal TV. He spent the last four years executive producing the Fox 21 produced Homeland. Prior he worked on 20^th Century Fox’s Lie to Me as story editor, EP and then co-showrunner and while at 20^th he landed his first overall deal. He’s repped by WME and Hansen Jacobson.

Actor-comedian Jimmy Pardo has inked an overall deal with Warner Bros TV Group-based Conaco, O’Brien’s development/production shingle, to develop scripted and unscripted projects. Pardo was previously O’Brien’s warm-up comedian for his late night talk show. He is also a regular panelist on Conan and hosts companion web series The Pardo Patrol.

FILM

Sam Neswick is the new Chief Strategy Officer at Participant Media switching over from his previous post as Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning there.

Broad Green Pictures today has appointed veteran marketing and distribution executive Dylan Wiley as the studio’s President of Specialty Releasing.  Wiley, who has been working with the company since November, is charged with managing all aspects of the release of Broad Green’s specialty film slate across all media. Jeremy Fuchs has also signed on as the Chief Technology Officer, he was previously the principal of Media and Entertainment Practice at Capgemini. He will head the company’s consolidated IT strategy, delivery and operations globally, working with senior management to develop new systems and technology to support all of the studio’s creative endeavors.

Simon Kilmurry has been tapped by The International Documentary Association to be their new Executive Director and will take over as of July 6. He was previously an EP at POV.

Lionsgate UK has tapped Nicola Pearcey as President of Distribution. During her nine year tenure she was the Managing Director of Home Entertainment and New Media. Lionsgate last year relocated its international sales and distribution headquarters to London.

Juliana Lubin has signed on to be the director of international sales at 13 Films, she was previously manager of international sales at The Exchange.

Participant Media has tapped Sam Neswick as Chief Strategy Officer. He was previously the company’s SVP of Strategic Planning. In the newly created post he will handle strategy, investments, innovation and corporate development and head up strategic partnerships.

Amy Bucher is the new VP of Content & Creative at Part2 Pictures in New York. Lindsay Washick has also been promoted to director of production at Part2Pictures, she previously was on staff as a line producer.

TV

Al Jazeera America has appointed Al Anstey as interim CEO following CEO Ehab Al Shihabi’s departure in the wake of turmoil at the network. Anstey has been at the network for ten years and most recently served as managing director of Al Jazeera English since 2010. Lisa Barroso has been promoted from VP to SVP of distribution of Crown Media Family Networks (Chicago).

Michela Di Mondo has been promoted from Executive Director of Sales at FremantleMedia International (Toronto) to the VP in that department.

Sara Geater has been named as All3Media’s CEO in London. She was previously the CEO of FremantleMedia UK.

Chantal Jackson is the new head of development, alternative content at Breakthrough Entertainment in Toronto. He previously worked as a writer/producer on HGTV’s Buying & Selling with the Property Brothers.

Hal Rosenberg has been upped form SVP to EVP of Content Distribution & Affiliate Marketing, UP TV in Atlanta.

Chairman/CEO Bruce Rosenblum appointed five new members of The TV Academy’s Executive Committee: Kevin Reilly, President of TBS and TNT; Roy Price, head of Amazon Studios; Bela Bajaria, EVP of Universal Television; David Nevins, President of Showtime Networks; and Rick Rosen, head of television at WME. They will work with the academy’s officers and Board of Governors to lead and shape the group’s direction.

Francisco Lopez-Balboa has been named CFO of the Spanish-language telecaster, Univision, and will report to CEO Randy Falco. Lopez-Balboa was previously Head of Telecom, Media and Technology Investment Grade Financing at Goldman Sachs.

Ana Salas Siegel is now the General Counsel, Hispanic Enterprises and Content at NBCUniversal beginning in June. She was previously the SVP, Deputy General Counsel, Business & Legal Affairs, FOX International Channels in Miami.

Marci Wiseman is Entertainment One’s new EVP of Global Business & Legal Affairs. She was previously the Executive in Charge of Owned Content Strategy & Distribution and Head of Business Affairs at AMC Network. As the new EVP, she will handle business and legal for eOne’s film and TV groups, including production, acquisition, international co-production, direct distribution and international sales.

Management, PR, Agencies

ICM Partners has formed a new department within its television department devoted to servicing the agency’s TV directors, producers and below the line producers. Sean Freidin will be the new Co-Head of ICM Partners’ TV Production Department. He was promoted from Agent in their TV Literary department. Janet Carol Norton has been promoted to co-head of the TV production department at ICM Partners. She is also a partner at the company.

Tory Howard is the new VP of Atlas Artists, he was previously a talent manager at Mosaic. He joins Nicholas Todisco who will be a talent manager at Atlas, and also moved from Mosaic where he was a talent manager. Atlas Artists as recently launched by Charles Roven under his Atlas Entertainment as the management division. Howard and Todisco both reunite with Atlas Artists President Dave Fleming who also hails from Mosaic.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Conde Nast Entertainment has snagged Joy Marcus as EVP, General Manager of Video. She was formerly the CEO of Bloglovin’ in New York.

Karen Lieberman is the new VP of Sales & Digital at Disney Music Group, she was formerly the Vice President of Digital Marketing & Strategy at Kobalt Music.

Management’s Alliance Of Motion Picture and Television Producers has tapped former political director of the California Republican Party, Jarryd Gonzales, as their new spokesman. He previously was the chief spokesperson for Verizon in California and Texas, and before that for T-Mobile USA. He was also the state GOP political director from 2001 to 2006.

Jenny Swiatowy has been promoted from Director to the Senior Director, Creative Sync Licensing at Capitol Music Group.

Mark Lemmons is the new Chief Technology Officer at Deluxe, he switched from being T3Media’s Chief Technology Officer.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Producer Sam Laybourne has inked a two-year overall deal with ABC Studios and will oversee and develop new projects for the studio. He previously served as EP on NBC’s The Michael J. Fox Show and other credits include ABC’s Cougar Town and Fox’s Arrested Development.

Radiant Films International and Cargo Entertainment have entered into a strategic partnership to expand their production, finance and sales abilities. To facilitate the partnership, Radiant president Mimi Steinbauer will also serve as Cargo’s distribution president while Radiant SVP John Short will oversee foreign sales for all Cargo titles. They are looking to produce 5 features per year. At Cannes, Radiant is selling romantic comedy Carrie Pilby starring Hailee Steinfeld and Tom Wilkinson.

Reality production house 44 Blue launched a virtual reality content studio named Ovrture. The company was founded by Mike Drachkovitch and will operate jointly with 44 Blue, providing immersive content across multiple VR platforms to accompany the company’s programs Lockup and Nightwatch. The company also plans to extend beyond producing unscripted television accompanying content to sports and entertainment. David Holecheck will serve as head of production and Dan Holecheck will be oversee post-production and technology. The duo founded the graphics and effects company Duality Filmworks. Rasha and Stephanie Noonan Drachkovitch have been named company directors.

Josh Bycel and Jonathan Fener have inked a two-year overall deal with Universal TV and will serve as exec producers on Eva Longoria comedy Telenovela, which NBC gave a straight to series order. The duo served as EPs on ABC’s Happy Endings and co-EPs on Fox’s American Dad. Fener and Bycel are represented by UTA and Morris Yorn.

Empire EP and showrunner Ilene Chaiken has signed a two-year overall deal with 20th Century Fox TV. Under the seven-figure deal, Chaiken will continue to run Empire while developing new series.

Entertainment studio IM Global and talent managers Carlos Bobadilla and Brandon Guzmán have teamed up to launch a joint venture management and production company, Valor Entertainment Group with the goal to build upon their already extensive Latino talent base and expand into the multicultural market. Principals Bobadilla and Guzmán will oversee the Literary division and Talent division respectively. It is also expected the Valor partners will work closely with Mundial, IM Global’s Latino film sales and financing joint venture with Canana Films.

Film

FilmNation Entertainment has upped Jennifer Fradlin, who has been with the company since 2009 to VP Business and Legal Affairs, Patrick Chu to VP Productions and Acquisitions and Selena Saldana to VP of Publicity. Chu’s new role will include developing and supervising in-house productions. In Cannes he will find new titles for production, financing and worldwide distribution. Saldana has been running PR for the company since 2013, this role will expand her position and she’ll oversee the company’s public profile and all publicity on production and sales projects.

Xavier Marchand is now the President at Entertainment One Features in London, he previously served as the company’s President of Film Production.

Dylan Wiley is the new President, Specialty Releasing at Broad Green Pictures. He previously served as SVP, general manager at eOne Film U.S.

The Weinstein Company has upped Ennis Hensley to President of International Sales & Distribution from EVP of the department and will continue working on international film sales of TWC and Dimension titles as well as develop new business opportunities. At Cannes and other markets and festivals he will serve as a rep for the company. Joe Pirro is the new head of production for Symbolic Exchange. He was previously a CE at The Weinstein Company. Lily Spottiswoode has been promoted to development coordinator, upped from executive assistant at the company.

Miramax has tapped independent producer David Thwaites to be their VP of film, a newly created position. He will report to Zanne Devine, executive VP of film and TV and will head Miramax’s burgeoning film production and development activities as the studio continues to expand their content areas.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has named Robert Lawson as their new corporate spokesman with the title Executive Vice President, Chief Communications Officer. Previously he was a PR exec at Rubenstein where he advised Michael Lynton during the Sony hack. He will to report Lynton and Nicole Seligman.

Film distribution company Alchemy, previously known as Millennium Entertainment, has centralized their IT and operations under three new executives. They hired Jerry McGlynn who will be the new Chief Technology Officer. Jim Jenkins has also been promoted to EVP Operations. Daniel Quantz will serves as VP Operations. Together they will work to develop its existing digital platform and lead strategic operational growth.

TV

Turner Broadcasting announced Doug Shapiro will be the EVP and Chief Strategy Officer upped from his current position as SVP, International and Corporate Strategy for Turner’s parent company, Time Warner, Inc. Starting in July he will be responsible for furthering Turner’s global corporate strategy and identifing business models and growth as well as overseeing their domestic Research and Consumer Insights team and its Media group.

Al Anstey has been tapped as the CEO of Al Jazeera America where he was the managing director at the company previously.

ESPN has tapped Justin Connolly as their executive vice president, Disney & ESPN Affiliate Sales and Marketing following Sean Bratches and David Preschlack’s plans to leave at year's end. Connolly launched the SEC Network and spent a decade in ESPN affiliate sales. The network also promoted Ed Erhardt to president, global sales & marketing, extending his reach across consumer marketing, ad sales and research.

Francisco J. Lopez-Balboa is the new CFO at Univision Communications Inc. in New York. He was previously the Managing Director, Head, Telecom, Media and Technology Investment Grade Financing at Goldman Sachs. Peter Lori is now the Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President, Finance & Chief Accounting Officer there and previously he served as Interim CFO, EVP.

Ben Caudell is the new head of entertainment for Channel 4 in London, he was formerly head of comedy for Objective Productions.

David Diederich is the new VP of Ad Sales & Brand Partnerships, Western Region at WGN America, he was previously VP of Sales at the cabler. Tim Russell will also join WGN America as VP of brand partnerships. He was previously the Senior Managing Director, Head, Sales at Meredith Video Studios.

Polly Hill has been promoted to controller of drama commissioning at the BBC, up from head of independent drama. Patrick Holland will join BBC has head of documentaries. He was tapped from Boundless Productions where he served as their managing director.

Michael J. Cavanagh has been named the EVP and CFO of the Comcast Corporation. He was formerly the Co-President, Co-Chief Operating Officer at The Carlyle Group.

Management, PR, Agencies

Agent Meredith Wechter, who recently left ICM Partners has moved to WME. She brings clients Josh Gad and Gal Gadot, Brittany Snow, Bryce Dallas Howard, Lucy Hale, Katharine McPhee, Abigail Spencer, Jeremy Strong and Seth Gabel.

Marketing firm Ignition Creative has hired Michael Brittain as a creative director. He will handle print advertising campaigns for films and TV shows. He formerly was Director of Print Design at FX Networks, where he worked on series such as Sons Of Anarchy, American Horror Story, Fargo and Louie.

WME has tapped Peter Schwartz and James Rubin to be music agents in their New York office. Both hailed from The Agency Group where Schwartz served as VP and head of urban music while Rubin headed up the International Division for Urban Touring and specialized in breaking artists in international markets. Their clients include Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Cypress Hill, Jordan Bratton, Method Man, Redman, Bronson, Vic Mensa, Ilovemakonnen, and many more.

Tara Levine is the new CMO at Deutsch New York. Levine previously served as the managing director of global marketing and business development at OMD and also worked at Euro RSCG and Arnold Worldwide. In her new post she will report to CEO Val DiFebo. Levine replaces Michael Goldberg, who became CEO at Zimmerman in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last September.

Michael Wall has been tapped by independent ad agency Mother as their global CEO. He was previously the global CEO of Lowe and Partners. Mother was named the Creativity Agency of the Year in 2009. In his new post he will lead the company’s efforts to expand into more markets and sectors of growth.

Management company Grandview has promoted Zac Frognowski to manager. It marks the first internal promotion for the company since its start. Frognowski was previously at Fourth Floor Productions.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Nathalie Moar is the new SVP and head of communications for Combs Enterprises. She was previously an executive at NKM Consultants in New York.

Richard Beckman has been named Chief Revenue Officer at Vice Media in New York in the first ever appointment for the position. He was an executive at Conde Nast for twenty years+ where he produced Fashion Rocks. After which he became CEO of Prometheus Global Media, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard and Adweek and then left to form Three Lions Entertainment with billionaire investor Ron Burkle.

Cedric Foster is the new SVP of Brand Marketing, Digital & Fan Engagement Strategy at Spike TV upped from VP of Spike Digital.

Disney has upped Leslie Ferraro to President of Consumer Products up from EVP Global Marketing, Sales and Travel Operations for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. The 16-year company veteran will oversee the global operation that covers products ranging from toys and apparel to books and fine art through the company’s Licensing, Publishing and Disney Store businesses.

Steve King has been promoted to VP of U.S. Creative Services at Imagem, up from Senior Director.

Abbey Thomas has been promoted to SVP of Entertainment and Auto at Tremor Video, up from VP of Entertainment.

Tal Fiala is the new President of Illuminate. Fiala was previously SVP of Business Development at Modern VideoFilm.

Rick McKinney is the new VP, secondary post production at Deluxe AdServices. He was formerly VP at McCann Erickson.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Jenny Daly’s T Group Prods has inked an overall co-production deal with long-time producer Ann Lewis Roberts, and her new shingle Roberts Media which will relocate to T Group’s Santa Monica office. Under the agreement, Roberts will create, develop and produce unscripted programming to be co-produced with T Group in the U.S., Canada and UK and they’ll serve as EPs on all series.

Moroccan-born billionaire Patrick Drahi Luxembourg-based telecom company, Altice, has made a deal to buy 70% of Suddenlink in a deal that values $9.1 billion including debt. If approved, the deal would give Altice 1.5 million cable customers across the U.S. marking the company’s first customers in the country.

Greek businessman and ship owner Paris Kasidokostas-Latsis has launched the Hercules Film Fund and will finance three to five wide-release films a year. It’s first film out of the gate is Mena, starring Tom Cruise which Universal Pictures is distributing. Kasidokostas-Latsis’ partner Terry Dougas is starting new production banner Rhea as the production company for films financed by Hercules and will co-produce Mena. The two companies will operate independently from 1821 Media, the multimedia production and finance company, already owned by longtime business partners Kasidokostas-Latsis and Douglas.

Alex Garcia, Latin America’s largest indie film producer-financier, has launched AG Capital, an equity-backed fund that will fully fund English language films in the $5 million-$25 million range and co-produce films above $25 million dollar budgets. AG Capital will be under Garcia’s controlling company AG Studios and will be run by him and Laura Walker, formerly an agent at CAA for seven years. Walker has worked in production, serving as assistant director to Richard Linklater, Peter Berg and Robert Rodriguez.

Broadcasters and cable networks are partnering to form a new organization named the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), formerly the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, focused on maximizing advertising potential through quality content on traditional TV outlets. Sean Cunningham will serve as President and CEO. Joe Abruzzese, president of advertising sales at Discovery Networks has been named an inaugural co-chair of the VAB. The VAB will include 110 networks and the 11 largest MVPDs combining the biggest broadcast networks, cable networks and distributors to advance the power of video advertising.

Ben Latham-Jones has fully bought Ealing Studios Entertainment, the production entity of the legendary London-based studio. The former creative director for Fox will serve as the head of studio. Previous head Barnaby Thompson will focus on directing. In 2012, Latham-Jones raised $50 million in financing to produce films.

FILM

Broad Green Pictures has hired Travis Reid as President of Theatrical Distribution. In his new role, Reid will oversee the theatrical distribution of the company’s current specialty, and forthcoming wide release slates, including theatrical sales, exhibitor relations, in-theatre marketing, and all associated operations in these areas. Emlyn Barrios has been named the SVP of Home Entertainment Sales. Barrios was previously at Paramount. Marco DiSilvio will be the VP of Home Entertainment Sales, formerly he worked at Redbox Instant. Vincent Gatewood has been hired as a CE. He was previously Lawrence Bender’s assistant. Dustin Howard has been named the new SVP of Home Ent. Sales, snagged from Cinedigm. Tom Parker has been hired as the VP of Promotions, Events & Field Publicity and was previously at Relativity Media. The company has also tapped Kathleen Kennedy’s previous assistant, Shary Shirazi to become a new CE.

Michael Dwyer is the new SVP International Sales & Distribution at IM Global. He previously served as VP, International Sales & Acquisitions at Screen Media.

New Line Cinema has named Catherine Nam as their VP of Publicity and Communication and will spearhead communications across all of the company’s operations and provide communications support for Warner Bros Theatre Ventures. She’s a veteran having spent 13 years in international PR at Warner Bros. Pictures. In the new role she will work closely with the publicity teams at Warner Bros. She reports to Toby Emmerich, President & COO of New Line Cinema.

Ennis Hensley has been promoted from EVP to President, International Sales & Distribution at The Weinstein Company.

Patrick Chu has been promoted from Director of Development to VP of Productions & Acquisitions at FilmNation Entertainment. Jennifer Fradlin has been promoted from Director to VP of Business & Legal Affairs at FilmNation Entertainment. Selena Saldana has been promoted to VP of Publicity, up from Director.

Mike Weatherley has been named the EVP, Director of the Motion Picture Licensing Corporation in LA/London. He previously served as British MP and Intellectual Property Rights Advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron in London.

TV

ITV Studios America has upped Paul Reaney to SVP Development. Based in Los Angeles, Reaney will still focus on the growth of the company’s West Coast development slate for broadcast, cable and digital. He’ll report to Bruce Robertson, EVP of Creative Strategy.

Chetan Dave has been promoted from Coordinator to Manager of Comedy Development at 20th Century Fox Television. Jenna Dim has likewise been upped from Coordinator to Manager in the Drama Development department.

Michael Jackson is the new Head of Global Sales at Banijay International in London. He was previously Senior Sales & Acquisitions Executive at DCD Rights in the city.

Josh Levy has been named SVP of Television at Boom! Studios. He was formerly VP of Creative Affairs at Far Field Productions.

Long-time TV programming exec Holly Hines has joined Dynamic Television as SVP Content, and will develop and sell new scripted series and mini-series to U.S., UK, Canadian and Australian networks. Previously she was SVP Scripted Programming at Pivot. Hines will work with Managing Partners Daniel March and Klaus Zimmermann in handling Dynamic’s produced television series.

Kelli Raftery has been upped to SVP Communications at CBS Corporation, will help manage media relations for the CBS Corporate Communications Department and work closely to support the communications teams at each of CBS’s business segments. Shannon Jacobs, who was previously the SVP Communications at CBS Corporation will be the senior consultant to the department. She’ll continue in her current role through the launch of the new fall season.

Lindsey Springer has been named the new President of Carlton Cuse Productions. She was previously at Amblin TV as head of development. At Carlton, her series portfolio will include A&E’s Bates Motel and The Returned, FX’s The Strain and USA’s upcoming Colony. Carlton Cuse inked a three-year first-look deal with A+E Studios last fall.

Long-time comedy writer-producer Donick Cary has inked a two-year overall deal with CBS TV Studios. In the first year he’ll serve as a consulting producer on Silicon Valley while developing for CBS Studios. Cary began his writing career on Late Night and Late Show With David Letterman before moving to The Simpsons.

Robert Atwood has been named VP of Television Development at Fazekas & Butter. Formerly he was the Director of Development & Talent at TV Land.

Martha Sepulveda is the new Director of Development & Production in Kids and Family Entertainment at Breakthrough Entertainment in Toronto. She was previously the Development Manager at Sinking Ship Ent.

Antonio Pacheco has been promoted from Director to VP of Program Planning & Scheduling at Starz.

Simon Raikes will be the new Creative Director at Red Planet Pictures in London. He formerly served as a Commissioning Editor in Factual at Channel5 in London.

Jim Schubert has been promoted from Executive Director to VP of Program Planning & Scheduling at Encore.

René Santaella has been promoted from VP to SVP of Global Ad Strategy & Operations, Digital Networks at Sony Pictures Television.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Deadline Hollywood founder Nikki Finke has announced plans for a new site called HollywoodDementia.com, centering around the creation of fictional stories about living and working in Hollywood. She will write and curate content for the site with a launch date planned for late June.

Tiffani Manabat has been tapped to be VP of Advertising & Games at Digital Domain 3.0. Previously he served as an Executive Producer of Post Production at Caviar.

Michael Brittain is the new Creative Director at Ignition Creative. He previously served as Director of Print Design at FX Networks.

Dan Clivner is now the Co-Managing Partner at Sidley Austin. He was previously Managing Partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

Machinima has just named former Sony and Fox digital marketing exec Joseph Epstein SVP, Marketing. At the studios he oversaw strategies and campaigns for films including The Croods, Good Day To Die Hard and The Wolverine. In the new role, he’ll report to COO Daniel Tibbets. Joerg Bachmaier has been named the SVP of Content Strategy & Co-Productions at Machinima. He was previously the EVP of International Production, BBC Worldwide.

Jarryd Gonzales, previous spokesperson at Verizon will head Public Relations & Communications for The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Entertainment Weekly has tapped Ellie Duque as their new publisher, replacing Melissa Mattiace who stepped down. Duque will oversee the development and execution of advertising sales and marketing initiatives on all platforms for the magazine, website and digital offerings. She will report to People and EW Group Publisher, Karen Kovacs. EW has also promoted Lana LoRusso to vice president and associate publisher of sales and will report to Duque.

Richard Van Syckle has been named the Nashville Local Executive Director of SAG-AFTRA in the city. Previously he gained experience as a freelance producer and project manager.

Brian Hunt is now the EVP and head of Development at Believe Ent. Group in NYC. He was previously the head of Creative Development at Yahoo!

Viz Media, a North American distributor of manga and anime, has tapped Brad Woods as its new chief marketing officer and will develop marketing and product strategies to expand the Viz Media brand across multiple channels across all of the company’s imprints. Previously, Woods was at DreamWorks Animation and held senior positions at Mattel and Warner Bros.

Angela Megrey has shifted to VP of Social Media at Crown Media Family Networks, she previously served that role at Blaze PR.

Marketing Agency, Razorfish just hired Samih Fadli as its first chief intelligence officer. Fadli will lead Razorfish Global’s Data Intelligence Practice and expand marketing intelligence and data sciences practices. Prior to taking the Razorfish gig, Fahli was SVP of global engineering at Gravity4, an ad tech company with a problematic CEO who just got sued for gender discrimination.

Rolling Stone has hired Josh Swade as executive producer of film and video starting May 26. Swade will manage Rolling Stone’s team of about 10 recently hired employees. He was previously a senior producer at MaggieVision Prods. Where he produced ESPN’s “The ESPYs” and “NFL Honors” awards shows.

Amazon-owned Audible.com has tapped Eric Nuzum as the SVP of Original Content. He hails from NPR where he was VP of Programming.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Charter has agreed to buy Time Warner Cable for $56 billion plus $10.4 billion for Bright House Networks. The deal was spearheaded by John Malone of Liberty Broadband Corporation, which owns a quarter of Charter. If the deal is approved by regulatory officials, Charter will become the number two cable company with 23.9 million customers, right behind Comcast’s 27 million subscribers. Comcast walked away from buying Time Warner Cable last month due to opposition from regulators.

NBC Sports has launched a new unit dubbed NBC Sports Films which will create documentary programs based on sports that NBC has a relationship with like hockey, Nascar or similar. NBC Sports Films’ first project is “Center of Attention: The Unreal Life of Derek Sanderson.” The one-hour documentary will look at the up-and-down life of former NHL star and two-time Stanley Cup Champion Derek Sanderson to premiere on June 8.

Leftfield Entertainment’s Loud TV, known for the series Tiny House Nation, is partnering with Stuart Cabb and Will Daws’ UK-based Plum Pictures to develop formats and original series for the U.S. market, out of New York offices. The duo already have a series greenlit by FYI and a project in development at MTV.

Point.360, an LA based postproduction house has agreed to buy Modern VideoFilm, whose day-to-day operations were taken over by the giant Deloitte Corporate Restructuring Group last fall. Modern VideoFilm has provided postproduction services to the film and TV industry for upwards of 33 years.

Lucifer EP and showrunner Joe Henderson has inked an overall deal with Warner Bros. Television, the studio behind the FOX show. Under the two-year pact, he will develop new projects for network, cable, and digital. Fox International Channels has launched Fox International Studios to be led by Sharon Tal Yguado who will also serve as EVP of Scripted Entertainment at FIC. Outcast, a new Cinemax series by Robert Kirkman, will be the first project under Yguado.

Longtime American Idol judge and music producer Randy Jackson has signed an overall production deal with Endemol Shine North America to develop unscripted, scripted and digital programming. In addition to American Idol, Jackson has produced several reality series, such as MTV hit Randy Jackson Presents: America’s Best Dance Crew.

Film

Broad Green Pictures has hired Gail Heaney as EVP of media, responsible for marketing solutions and media strategies for releases across all platforms. Heaney hails from Summit Entertainment where she was an EVP and worked on The Twilight Saga, Divergent and The Hurt Locker. She also worked for the CW and Universal.

Blanca Lista has been promoted from Director to VP of Feature Film Production at The Jim Henson Co.

Catherine Nam has been named the new VP of Publicity & Communications at New Line Cinema. She was previously Director of International Publicity at Warner Bros. Pictures.

James Schamus, head of production company Symbolic Exchange head has locked in a first-look and strategic cooperation agreement with Chinese start-up Meridian Entertainment and will serve as a chief creative and strategic adviser to Meridian. The deal will offer development and production funding for Symbolic’s English-language slate, while also providing for co-development of Chinese projects.

Leftfield Entertainment has promoted three of their own: Will Nothacker to SVP, Development and Shawn Witt to SVP, Programming at Leftfield Pictures and Ed Simpson to SVP, Business Development & International, Leftfield Entertainment.

Legendary Entertainment has added Jackie Robinson Foundation’s head, Della Britton to their board of directors along with Univision’s President of News and Digital Isaac Lee.

TV

Odyssey Media has tapped Karen O’Hara as their new executive in charge of U.S. East Coast production and development. Previously O’Hara spent seven years as VP of original movies at Syfy Channel, where she developed and supervised production on over 150 movies.

Reelz has promoted Andrea Jomides to Vice President of Distribution. Jomides had been Director of National Distribution.

Marty Coffou has been named Calamity Jane Entertainment’s Director of Development. He was previously an Executive Assistant at Showtime.

Ann Sarnoff has been named BBC Worldwide North America’s President to take effect in August. She currently serves as the company’s COO. Sarnoff has managed the majority the North American operation’s revenue streams including home entertainment and licensing and helped build franchises including Doctor Who, Top Gear and BBC Earth. She takes over the position held by Herb Scannell who is leaving the company to pursue ‘entrepreneurial paths’ in digital.

Lisa Fahrenholt has been named Endemol Shine International’s new Acquisitions Director. She was previously Endemol Worldwide Distribution’s Acquisitions Manager.

Maureen Guthman has been named BET’s new SVP in Programming and Acquisitions. She was previously the SVP of Program Strategy & Acquisitions at TV One.

Andrea Jomides has been promoted from Director to VP of Distribution at ReelzChannel in NYC.

Jessica Rovins has been named the EVP of Communications at Paramount TV, she was previously the SVP of Publicity.

Rock Shrimp Productions tapped Glen Freyer as Executive Vice President of Development. Freyer is a former Executive Producer and Development Executive with 20th Television.

Management, PR, Agencies

CAA has hired Maren Olson for their Film Finance & Sales Group where she’ll focus on expanding packaging business. She was previously at independent film production company Traction Media, where she served as president and oversaw creative development, financing and sales of films such as the SXSW hit Short Term 12.

Global public relations firm Edelman has hired Chris Allieri as their first Executive Vice President of Communications Marketing. Previously, Edelman had been Director, Digital & Corporate Communications at Univision.

Abrams Artists Agency has promoted four veteran execs to senior leadership roles in a company restructure. Neal Altman and Robert Attermann will now be COOs in Los Angeles and New York. Brian Cho has been named the CFO in Los Angeles and New York, and Marni Rosenzweig has been upped to SVP in Los Angeles and heads up the Los Angeles Talent Division, which includes adult and youth departments.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Venice-based messaging app, Snapchat has hired Marcus Wiley as head of program planning and development. He will oversee original series produced for Snapchat's Discover channel. Wiley previously served as co-senior vp comedy development at Fox which included Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Mindy Project.

Chris Connelly has been named interim editor-in-chief of Grantland. Connelly is an award-winning journalist whose work has been seen on E:60, Outside The Lines, ABC News and many others. Prior to ESPN/ABC in 2001, Connelly spent more than ten years at MTV where he specialized in film news. Connelly will continue as a contributor for 20/20 and other ABC News programs, where he mainly covers popular culture.

Vox Media has acquired tech-news site Re/code. Re/code co-founders Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg will stay on. Founded in 2007 as All Things Digital, Re/code was first a tech conference and part of The Wall Street Journal. In 2013, All Things Digital left the Journal and Re/code was created with backing from NBC Universal. Re/code continues to produce live events, generating much of the company's revenue. The 44 full-time employees at Re/code are expected to join Vox.

Evolution Media promoted Alex Baskin to Partner, and appointed Sara Hansemann to Vice President of Development and Robert Carroll to Vice President of Current. Baskin will continue to serve as Executive Vice President of Programming and Development; both Hansemann and Carroll will report to him.

Lionsgate and Tribeca Enterprises have tapped Jeff Bronikowski as president of Tribeca Shortlist, a subscription video-on-demand service aimed at film fans. Bronikowski most recently was COO of IAC’s DailyBurn subscription-based streaming fitness service. Prior to that he spent 12 years at Universal Music Group, leading digital content strategy as SVP of business development.

Ben Duhl has been named head of Brand Partnerships for Portal A in addition to his Principal role at Royal Braun.

Michelle Jubelirer has been promoted from EVP to COO at Capitol Music Group.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Bela Bajaria has been upped to president of Universal Television and the studio’s comedy chief, Tracey Pakosta will now be EVP of comedy programming at NBC. Bajaria had been exec VP of Universal TV since joining the network back in 2011. The shakeup also includes, Vernon Sanders, who will move from overseeing comedy development at NBC to his previous role as head of the network’s current programming.

Creative company Logan has opened a virtual reality division to be headed by co-founder/director Ben Conrad. Its first project is for Oculus Rift entitled Virtual Drift, was through agency The Brooklyn Brothers featuring Formula Drifter Matt Powers.

Image Nation Abu Dhabi is partnering with Discovery Communications to launch Quest Arabiya, a new free-to-air Arabic-language channel for the Middle East and North Africa to launch in 2015 with offices in the UAE. Quest Arabiya will target Arab men aged 16-44 with factual and reality programs with locally-produced original material as well as localized content from Discovery’s library. Genres will be similar to the Discovery Channel’s current offerings. Image Nation’s Carl von Doussa will lead the new channel.

Disney has partnered with giant Youku Tudou for the local marketing of its Marvel films and TV shows. Youku Tudou will exclusively market the studio’s properties via trailers, ticketing, live events and original programming dedicated to theatrical features to its 500M unique monthly users.

Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman has signed an overall deal with AMC. The overall deal excludes Kirkman’s latest comic-to-TV show at Cinemax titled Outcast.

TriStar Television is being relaunched as a boutique production unit within Sony Pictures Television. Suzanne Patmore Gibbs will be running the unit, following her three year stint as EVP drama development for Sony Pictures Television. The new division will focus on a small number of projects, including The Good Girls Revolt, which is being picked up to pilot by Amazon.

Heads at Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films have signed a production pact with Baker Entertainment Group to co-finance and co-produce three films starting with the $15 million budgeted thriller Inconceivable.

Korea’s CJ Entertainment has entered a film production and investment joint venture with Thailand’s Major Cineplex Group for a slate of 10 Korean-Thai co-productions and local films during the next three years to multiply their business across Southeast Asia. CJ will work with Thai talent, both established and emerging, in a bid to cultivate the local business. Since 2000, CJ has sold and distributed 290 Korean films in Thailand.

FILM

Robin Chandler, the former publicity head at Pixar Animation Studios, has been tapped by DreamWorks Animation as head of theatrical publicity. She will report to Jim Gallagher, head of the company’s theatrical marketing. Previously Robin was at Pixar for six years and before that was head of product publicity for Electronic Arts.

Ross Fanger has been tapped as the EVP and Head of Physical Production for the STX Entertainment Motion Picture Group and will handle physical and postproduction on all new projects produced by the film studio. After a decade at FOX he was most recently head of physical production at Marvel Studios.

Lionsgate has brought Joanna Massey on to be their VP Corporate Communications & Investor Relations, a new position. Massey will work closely as a corporate spokesperson and help develop corporate media strategies and messaging worldwide, assist with investor relations and collaborate on theatrical publicity initiatives. She will report to Peter Wilkes and Julie Fontaine. Previously she was SVP Media Relations at UPN and SVP Corporate Communications & Publicity for Hub Network.

Federico San Martin has been named the VP of Global Consumer Products, The Jim Henson Company, he was formerly the head of Global Toys, DreamWorks Studios.

TV

Endemol Shine USA unscripted television President Eden Gaha and EVP Rob Smith have added a slew of people to their team. Linda Giambrone, formerly EVP and Head of Production for Shine America, has been named EVP and Head of Unscripted Production and will handle production for the company’s entire reality portfolio. Showrunner Georgie Hurford-Jones has joined the company as SVP, Unscripted Programming. Rachel Dax has been upped from VP to SVP, Unscripted Production, reporting to Giambrone. Dax will oversee all day-to-day production for Endemol Shine USA’s unscripted programming. Robin Feinberg has been upped from VP to SVP in programming and will continue to oversee day-to-day programming efforts on multiple series. In unscripted development, Michael Weinberg has been promoted from VP to SVP while Laura Gibson and Christopher Potts have both signed on as VPs of unscripted development.

Carlos Deschapelles has been named the EVP of Network & Digital Sales at Univision Communications, he was previously the SVP of Sports Sales at the company.

Sarah Etherden has been named director of Corporate Communications at Blue Ant Media in Toronto. She was formerly the Communications Manager at Teletoon.

Michael Page has been named VP of digital local sales at Tribune Broadcasting. He comes from Gannett Digital Ventures and reports to Angela Betasso, senior VP of sales.

Michael Gara has been named SVP of Programming at Karga 7 Pictures. He was previously VP of Development at Endemol Shine Group.

Comcast has hired Chris Satchell as their Chief Product Officer. Satchell has specialized in consumer gadgets with experience at Nike, IGT, and Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business. He’ll report to Comcast Cable CTO Tony Werner and handle teams in Philadelphia, Denver and Silicon Valley.

PactUS has tapped veteran reality TV executive producer Matt Gould as EVP of East Coast operations. The TV and content producers’ company was launched recently by former Nat Geo Channel CEO David Lyle. Gould was previously the EVP of Zig Zag Productions, where he led business and programming efforts for networks including Syfy, National Geographic, A&E, Nickelodeon and others.

LZ Granderson is joining ABC News as a contributor. LZ will continue as a senior writer at ESPN where he has worked since 2005 in such roles as NBA and tennis editor; host and co-producer of a variety of digital shows; and a member of their on-air tennis coverage team.  Previously, LZ was a CNN contributor and worked at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Grand Rapids Press among others.

Dave Kaylor is now the director of Veteran Recruiting at Hearst Television in Boston. Before he was the Director of Engineering at WCVB-TV.

Scott Kirkpatrick has been named the SVP of North American Sales at the Digital Rights Group. He was previously the Executive Director, Distribution at MarVista Entertainment.

Kate Llewellyn-Jones has been named the Managing Director at TCB Media Rights in London. She was previously the SVP of Sales Management for France and Germany at Cineflix Rights.

Alex Baskin has been named partner of Programming & Development at Evolution Media in addition to his EVP status. Robert Carroll has been named VP of Current Programming at Evolution, up from his executive producer title.

Jeff Bumgarner has been named VP of programming at Original Productions, up from EP. He joins John Gray who has been promoted to SVP from VP of Programming & Development. Sarah Whalen has been promoted to EVP from SVP of Programming & Development at the company.

Scott Miller has been promoted from VP to SVP and Associate General Counsel, Legal & Business Affairs, Turner Content Distribution, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. in Atlanta.

Mark Neal has been named the Director of Current Programming at Lighthearted Entertainment, up from Development Producer there.

Scott Paskoff has been named the VP of Development & Programming at Keshet DCP, he was previously VP of Development at Bodega Pictures.

Ed Simpson has been promoted from VP to SVP of Business Development & International at Leftfield Entertainment. Shawn Witt has been promoted from VP to SVP of Programming there. Will Nothacker has likewise been upped from VP to SVP of Development.

Kurt Patat has been hired on as SVP of Corporate Communications at CMT. He was previously VP of Communications at MTV.

Daysun Perkins has been named SVP of Programming & Development, West Coast at Spectrum. He was previously a Development Executive at 44 Blue Productions.

CNN has tapped Dan Pfeiffer as a contributor. Until March he was the White House’s senior adviser for strategy and communications. He joined Obama’s presidential campaign in 2007 in communications and then served as communications director for much of Obama’s first term, before being promoted to senior adviser for the first two years of Obama’s second term.

Management, PR, Agencies

CAA has hired Maren Olson as an agent in the Film Finance & Sales Group. Maren was previously president of Traction Media.

Carolyn Hunt is now a partner at Barnes & Thornburg. She was previously a partner at Loeb & Loeb.

Jessica Marlow has been promoted to Partner at Weintraub Tobin, up from associate.

Paul Reader has been named VP and Chief Strategy Officer at Andrew E. Freedman Public Relations.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Time Warner CFO Arthur Minson will be departing the company but stay on to advise TWC as it seeks to complete its sale to Charter Communications. WeWork, a privately held company that rents office space and services to independent and start-up firms has named him on as president and COO.

Kate Shepherd is the new EVP of Content at Contend, she was previously the VP of Development at Shine America. Jon Sneider joins her as the new CMO and EVP of Client Partnerships at Contend. He hails from RedFin where he was VP of Advertising and Brands.

Digital media company Mashable has tapped Eric Korsh as their new director of Mashable Studios, its video programming and branded entertainment division. There he will oversee a team to develop, produce and distribute original video programming and branded video content for advertisers.

Michael Minkler has been named the Chief Creative Officer at Moving Pictures Media Group along with his title as Managing Director.

Snapchat has named Sean Mills their head of original content. He was previously the president of The Onion and helped it grow to a readership of 10 million. In his new role he will grow the social media company’s ever-expanding slate of original programming. Mills will report to Nick Bell.

Vulture has hired Neil Janowitz as the editorial director of the New York magazine's online culture and entertainment section. He most recently was the assistant managing editor of EW.com

Ronnie Ycong has been upped from VP to SVP of Exhibitor Relations & Operations, Spotlight Cinema Networks.

Albert Cheng has been named the new COO at Amazon Studios. He hails from Disney where he spent a decade building its online and on-demand platforms in the digital division. Bob Berney is the new Head of Movies Distribution and Marketing. He was previously the CEO of Picturehouse.

Janice Brock is now the Joint Head of A&R, UK and Head, UK Management Division, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, up from Director.

Mark Lafontant has joined LA-based ad and marketing agency Buddha Jones as a creative producer. He previously spent 12 years as VP Creative Advertising at Walt Disney Studios.

Tanya Greig Perara has been named the SVP of Business Affairs, Film Music, Universal Pictures. She was previously the VP of Business & Legal Affairs, Telemundo Media. David Ventura has also been named a Joint Head. He was promoted from his VP position in International at the company.

Prettybird, a creative think tank and branded content company, has hired Suzanne Hargrove as executive producer. Hargrove hails from Bandito Brothers where she was EP and handled the commercial division and also produced longer format material including TV doc Shaun White: Russia Calling and web series work on Mortal Kombat.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Tessa Ross and Juliette Howell have partnered to create a yet unnamed new production company to cover both film and TV production and to open before the end of 2015. Tessa Ross was the former head of Film4 while Howell was previously Working Title’s TV head.

In a competitive battle, 20th Century Fox TV has signed Dan Fogelman through his Rhode Island Ave Productions banner to a four-year overall development deal. His previous deal was at ABC Studios. Under the new Fox agreement, he will develop projects within a variety of genres that he will then produce and write himself or oversee other writers. Fogelman’s pilot, Grandfathered received an order from Fox this year. On the feature side, Fogelman produced Me and Earl and the Dying Girl which is releasing today.

CAA has formed CAA Premium Experience, a full-service hospitality, event management and marketing practice. It stems from recent acquisitions: corporate hospitality companies Beyond Sports & Entertainment and Goviva. The new companies will pair with CAA’s Inside Sports & Entertainment Group to form the new venture. The company will have upwards of 50 staffers.

PBS has partnered with Brightcove to launch a new Android app which gives users access to video from PBS and member stations, full-length episodes from new primetime programs and PBS archives, with national and local station content updated daily.

Vimeo and Fullscreen are collaborating to bring exclusive content to Vimeo On Demand. The partnership launches with the global release of #O2LForever on June 23, featuring disbanded vlogging supergroup O2L.

Film

Big shake-up at 21st Century Fox as Rupert Murdoch has stepped down as CEO and handed over the reins to his sons. James Murdoch will be promoted from co-COO to CEO of 21st Century Fox and Lachlan Murdoch will become executive chairman. Rupert Murdoch will continue as an executive chairman. Chase Carey is also stepping down as COO but will remain until May 2016 in a to-be-determined role. In addition, Roger Ailes will continue to report directly to Rupert Murdoch at the Fox News Channel.

James Myers has been promoted from Director of Development to VP of Production at Summit.

Tobias Riehl has been upped from Sales Director to Co-Managing Director of Paramount Pictures Germany. Likewise Florian Ritter has been promoted from Co-Managing Director from her position as Marketing Director.

Lynn Heymont is now the EVP of Human Resources at Participant Media, she was previously the company’s SVP.

Long-time production executive Mark Sourian will join Universal Pictures as EVP of Production. Sourian comes to Universal from DreamWorks Studios where he has served in the production ranks since 1997 and most recently as an independent producer with the company. He had a first look production deal with Dreamworks previously. Sourain joins Erik Baiers who has also been named EVP of Production for the studio, he was upped from SVP, a job he held since 2012. He will continue to report to co-Presidents of Production Peter Cramer and Jeffrey Kirschenbaum, who made the announcement.

Loren Schwartz has joined Warner Bros. as the feature division’s new EVP of genre marketing and creative advertising. Schwartz will report to the EVP of marketing, Blair Rich and president of worldwide marketing and international distribution, Sue Kroll. He left Screen Gems as their marketing EVP and that post was promptly taken by Danielle Misher who was promoted into his position.

Anthony Bregman’s Likely Story production company, headed by Anthony Bregman has hired on Peter Cron as VP of Film Production and Jeff Stern as VP of Scripted TV. Cron was a former Weinstein Company CE while Stern hailed from HBO’s Fair Harbor Productions. Ryan Featherman was also promoted to story editor on the TV side. All three have also worked at Scott Rudin Productions. The company’s in preproduction on James Schamus’ Indignation and James Ponsoldt’s The Circle.

Jason Brenek has been named the President of Home Entertainment and EVP for IMAX. He was previously the SVP of International In-Home and Head, Global Business Development & Strategic Partnerships for The Walt Disney Company.

Tracy Kain is now the VP of National Ad Sales for the Western Region & Detroit Region, Screenvision, up from just overseeing the Detroit region. Christine Martino has been promoted from VP to SVP of National Ad Sales as well.

Indie financing and production house IM Global, subsidiary of Reliance ADA , a has formed a co-financing and admin partnership to handle music publishing, distribution and market services with music rights management company Kobalt. Under the deal Kobalt will handle domestic and foreign releases of soundtracks and manage the rights to scores and songs for IM Global Films, IM Global Music and IM Global Television.

Danielle Misher has been upped to EVP, Marketing for Screen Gems. She will report to Dwight Caines, president of Domestic Theatrical Marketing for Sony Pictures Entertainment. Misher will spearhead the marketing for Clint Culpepper’s division, handling the creation of campaigns including trailers, posters, television ads, and publicity.

Gillian Bohrer has been named Co-President of Production for Lionsgate, up from EVP of Production and Development for the studio. Bobby Cohen also joins the studio as Co-President of Production. HE was previously a Senior Producer at Secret Hideout.

TV

Showtime long-time chairman and CEO Matthew Blank is stepping down and with it Showtime President David Nevins will take over the role effective January 1, 2016. Blank will continue in his role as chairman, working on big-picture strategy. In his new role, Nevins will be responsible for all aspects of the daily and strategic management of the division, creative development and acquisition of premium programming and marketing, and for all of the other business functions at Showtime. He will continue to report to Blank but will also report to Moonves.

Univision Communications Inc. promoted Roberto Ruiz to EVP, Strategy and Insights. Ruiz joined UCI in 2008 as Vice President of Strategy + Insights.

Daniel C. Murdock is the new VP and Corporate Controller for Comcast. He was previously the Deputry Chief Accountant, Securities and Exchange Commission in D.C.

Bela Bajaria has been named President of Universal Television, promoted from EVP.

Comedy writer-producer Chuck Tatham is extending his pact with 20th Century Fox TV in another overall deal for two years. He will continue to work on the studio’s flagship live-action comedy Modern Family, with an executive producer credit next season. He previously served as Co-EP on Arrested Development and Back To You.

Ian Lamarra is the new Creative Director of Bookhouse in London. He was formerly the Creative Director for Alaska TV.

Brandon Meyer has been promoted from Manager to Director at FremantleMedia North America in their Scripted Programming department.

Glenda Pacanins has been upped from VP of Programming Strategy Integration to SVP of Programming & Content at Telemundo in Miami. Leonor Sotillo has been named SVP of Programming Strategy, up from VP.

Fox Networks Group has entered into a three year first-look deal with producer Scott Rudin who will develop and produce projects for three networks: Fox through 20th Century Fox TV, FX through FX Prods, and National Geographic Channel through National Geographic Studios. Garrett Basch of Film Rites is in discussions to oversee the TV side. He is repped by WME and Ziffren Brittenham. His upcoming films include Zoolander 2, Steve Jobs, The Intern and Mistress America.

Crown Media Family Networks, Home of the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, has hired Angela Megrey as their VP of social media.

Deborah Bradley has been named EVP of Networks and Programming Optimization, Content Strategy & Commercialization at Turner Broadcasting System, up from SVP of Program Acquisitions.

Paula Cavalcanti is the new CEO of FremantleMedia Brazil. He was previously the Production Director of TV Bandeirantes.

Muse Entertainment USA has hired Lydia Storie as VP Development, Meghan Mathes as Director of Development and promoted Scott Clayton to Manager of Development. They will grow Muse Entertainment’s slate of scripted programming, especially serialized drama and large-scale event miniseries and comedy. Storie hails from Endemol Studios’ where she was Director of Development and Mathes was previously a Manager of Development at Evolution Entertainment.

Vanessa Grunstein is the new VP of Business Affairs for NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group. She was previously the VP of Business & Legal Affairs at Ryan Seacrest Productions.

Allie James has been promoted from Manager to Director at MTV in their Scripted Development department.

Tracey Pakosta has been named EVP of Comedy Programming for NBC Entertainment, previously Pakosta was the EVP of Comedy for Universal TV. Vernon Sanders has been named EVP of Current Programming at NBC Entertainment, a shift from their Comedy Programming department.

Glen Freyer is the new EVP of Rock Shrimp Productions. He hails from Atlas Media where he was SVP of Development.

Jeff Grosvenor has been named VP of Comedy Development at WB Television. He hails from Le Train Train Productions where he was EVP of Development.

Scott Stemmermann has been named VP of Digital Marketing at NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution, up from Director.

Meghann Wu has been named SVP of Strategy & Business Development at Viacom Music and Entertainment Group, up from VP.

Management, PR, Agencies

Jay Rosenthal is now a Partner of Entertainment & New Media at Mitchell Silberberg Knupp in D.C. He was previously a General Counsel at the National Music Publishers’ Association.

Nigel Meiojas has left ICM Partners. While at ICM he repped Alexander Ludwig, Lucas Black, Jerry O’Connell and Robert Duvall among others. Per Deadline, he is “expected to become an agent at United Talent Agency” and it’s not confirmed which clients will be leaving with him.

Katherine Rowe is now the SVP for Shelter PR. She was previously the SVP of Slate PR.

Thruline Entertainment has made longtime talent manager Marc Hamou a partner, bringing the company’s partner count to six. His client list includes Emily VanCamp, Jay Baruchel and Rex Lee among others. Christina Karakasidis has also been promoted to manager. She started there in 2009 as an assistant and most recently was a talent coordinator.

Ellie Schiff has been upped from coordinator to Agent in Paradigm’s TV Literary division.

Kate Rosenbaum has signed on to Slate PR as VP and will work closely with co-founder Simon Halls on their entire roster, which includes Ridley Scott, Ang Lee, Brett Ratner and Bryan Singer among others. She hails from 42West where she spent eight years working on feature campaigns.

Hilary Craven has been named the CMO of Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners. She was previously the Head of Experiential & Earned Media at 72andSunny.

Jacob Hastad has been upped from assistant to Manager of Talent at Gotham/Principal.

Bruce Solar is the new EVP of Worldwide Music at APA. He hails from The Agency Group where he was SVP and Head in their LA offices.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Dick Costolo is stepping down from his post as Twitter’s CEO and Co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey will serve as interim CEO starting July 1. Costolo, who signed on in 2009 as COO will remain on Twitter’s board. Dorsey meanwhile will continue to head Square, the company he founded in 2009 while Twitter searches for a permanent CEO.

Funny Or Die has hired John Schneider as President of Sales. Previously he headed Blank Screen Ventures, a digital media consultancy, working with start-ups OnScroll and Percolate.

Ellie Duque has been named publisher of Entertainment Weekly, taking over for Melissa Mattiace.

Hasbro has signed on Meghan McCarthy as Head of Storytelling for the company’s Girl brands and report to EVP and Chief Content Officer, Stephen Davis. In her new position she will develop story and characters across the company’s portfolio of brands. She will also develop the upcoming My Little Pony animated feature film currently slated for release in 2017. Previously she was an EP on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series on Discovery Family Channel, now in its fifth season. In addition Coral Wright has been named a Creative Executive there. Wright makes the move from Monsterfoot Productions where Wright was also a CE.

Bryan Weiser has been named a manager of business affairs for DC Entertainment. He was formerly a manager for Business & Legal Affairs at 3 Ball Entertainment.

Sameer Deen is the new SVP of Univision Digital in Miami. Deen was previously SVP Multi-Platform Distribution & Strategy at Scripps Networks Interactive.

Sean Mills has been named head of Original Content at Snapchat, he formerly was the President of NowThis.

Adam Smith has been promoted from Regional VP to SVP of National Sales at Vevo. Prior to joining Vevo, Smith spent five years in Sales at MySpace.

Joan Halpern Weise has been named a Manager of Labor Relations at Netflix. She was previously the Assistant National Executive Director, Contracts at SAG-AFTRA.

Kre8 Media, a DRTV, digital media and brand advertising agency, has upped Stephen Pickens to the new position of Vice President, Partnership Development. Pickens was the first hire of Kre8 Media in 2009 as their Director of Client Services and Business Development.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Kevin Biegel, who’s known as the co-creator of Cougar Town, has signed a two-year overall deal with ABC Television Studios. Under the agreement, Biegel will develop new projects and be the consulting producer on new comedy at ABC family, The Real O’Neals.

Lionsgate TV has signed Good Wife writer Keith Eisner to an multi-year overall pact. He will join the EPIX series Graves as an EP while developing and producing new scripted programming.

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Women In Film Los Angeles have signed a multi-year partnership dedicated to raising awareness about the lack of gender equality in the industry and celebrate the achievements of women who have succeeded in film. TCM will run the programming initiative over three weeks in October and will take a deeper look at gender inequality in the film industry, and will tackle pro-social elements (research, resources, tools, etc) to assist women filmmakers in furthering their careers.

Marc Webb has signed an exclusive two-year overall deal with CBS TV. His two pilots he directed and will EP, drama Limitless and comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend were picked up by CBS and CW respectively. Both will be produced by CBS TV Studios. He also will develop new projects for network and cable and direct pilots for the studio.

Elizabeth Banks and producing partner Max Handelman (the duo behind Pitch Perfect 2) have signed an exclusive overall producing deal with Warner Bros Television for their Brownstone Productions. Under the multi-year pact, the pair will develop and produce new series for the studio.

Jay and Mark Duplass have signed a two-year overall deal with HBO under their Duplass Brothers Television shingle. The duo already EP two series for HBO, Togetherness and Anmials. Stephanie Langhoff, the President of Duplass Brothers Productions, will also oversee Duplass Brothers Television.

Director-cinematographer Alik Sakharov has inked a first-look TV development deal with The Weinstein Company. Under the agreement, Sakharov will develop original ideas for television to both direct and produce. He will return to direct episodes of the TWC and Netflix series Marco Polo next season. Sakharov most recently directed episodes of Game Of Thrones. He was also the co-executive producer on Black Sails for Starz.

The IMAX China Film Fund has been set up with subsidiary IMAX China and partner China Media Capital to focus on investing in a minimum of 10 Mandarin-language tent-poles based on an initial capitalization of up to $50 million. The partnership with CMC will target investments of $3-7 million per local film.

Devil’s Due Entertainment and 1First Comics have combined to form Devil’s Due / 1First Comics LLC, a mini-major comics publishing company focused on creator-owned work. The merger combines each company’s comic libraries and business infrastructure, with implications for both the comics industry and film/television. The new company will release six original graphic novels and launch five new ongoing comic series in 2015 with the new imprint appearing on comics beginning in the fall.

Mucho Mas Media, a partnership between Pelican Point Media and Texican Media, has joined with Brillstein Entertainment Partners to co-produce feature films for the U.S. Latin demographic. The first projects are slated for production this year, will focus on high-concept comedies and thriller-horror films and faith-based films in the budget range of under $2.5 million.

Bona Film Group, China’s largest private film company, has partnered with state-backed Huaxia Film Distribution to co-produce and distribute around five films a year. Bona Film released their 26-picture slate at the Shanghai Film Festival to celebrate the company’s 15th anniversary.

Zachary Levi has launched a production company, Middle Man Productions focusing on developing and producing character-driven comedy and drama projects, to be based at Universal Television where he recently signed a first-look deal. Levi has already staffed his shingle, naming Erik Olsen as EVP and Justin Allen as VP. At Uni TV, Levi is producing the musical comedy project Tuned and will appear in the Heroes Reborn NBC limited series.

Chinese online giant Alibaba Group is launched a video streaming service akin to Netflix. It will be named Tmall Box Office (TBO) and stream in-house productions in addition to content from within China and imported from other countries.

TV creator Courtney Kemp Agboh has signed an overall deal with Starz. Under the deal she will continue to EP and be a showrunner on Starz’s Powers. The season premiere of the show set a new season premiere ratings record for Starz with 1.43 million Live + same day viewers and landed a season 3 renewal.

The Neighbors and Galavant creator Dan Fogelman has decided to sign with 20th Century Fox TV in a four-year overall deal amidst a competitive bidding war. He was previously at ABC Studios. Under the new pure development deal he will develop drama, live-action and animated comedy projects, producing, writing himself or supervising other writers.

The Carrie Diaries creator Amy B. Harris has inked a two-year overall deal with ABC Studios. She will be an EP/showrunner on ABC’s Wicked City and develop new projects for network, cable and streaming services. She is repped by CAA and attorney Karl Austen.

Film

Michael Clear has signed on to head Atomic Monster, the James Wan shingle at New Line as part of Wan’s Conjuring 2 helming deal. Clear will supervise day-to-day operations and report directly to Wan. Their next projects include Aquaman and Robotech.

Fox has officially named James Murdoch the CEO to take effect July 1. As expected, Rupert Murdoch will be named Executive Co-Chairman along with his son Lachlan Murdoch. Chase Carey is shifting from President and COO to Executive Vice Chairman, to take effect on July 1 as well.

Paramount Pictures announced the appointment of former IMAX China manager Tara Yin to General Manager of its China office. Yin will oversee the distribution and marketing of Paramount films in China and work closely with China Film Group and other Chinese partners in this fast growing market. 

STX Entertainment has hired longtime music exec Jason Markey as EVP and Head of Music and will oversee all aspects of the music for films including production of scores and soundtracks. He will source songs and develop original music for 12 to 15 movies a year. Prior to STX, he was the EVP Music & Soundtracks at Relativity Media for six years and also had worked at MCA Records and Arista Records.

Alexandra Loewy is the new SVP of Development at Di Bonaventura Pictures. She was previously SVP, Development and Production at Global Produce.

Tracy Falco has partnered with Lawrence Bender in his first look deal with Access Industries (AI Film) run by CEO Aviv Giladi. At Universal, Falco headed the development and production of Little Fockers, and Nancy Meyers’ It’s Complicated. 

Marvel Studios has rehired Rob Steffens as CFO of the Disney-owned studio, taking over for Chris Acquaviva who has left the company. He will report to Marvel Chairman Isaac Permutter. Steffens was previously CFO in 2013 but had left to become CFO and COO of Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video. In addition, Mindy Hamilton has left Paramount to be Global Partnerships SVP at Marvel and will report to Steffens.

Previous Warp Films EP and BAFTA winner, Mary Burke has been named a senior production and development exec at the BFI Film Fund and will work closely with writers, directors and producers across development and production on British features.

TV

Endemol Shine International, the global TV distribution arm of the Endemol Shine Group, has picked Simon Cox as Head of Acquisitions. Cox was previously an Investment Manager at Ingenious Media, where he was responsible for deals on such scripted productions as ITV’s The Frankenstein Chronicles and Channel 4’s Coalition.

Marina Dompke is the new Manager of Development at Valhalla Ent. She was previously a Coordinator of Drama Development & Programming, FOX Broadcasting Company.

Maria Fischer is the new Director Network Program Publicity at Crown Media Family Networks. She was previously a Freelance Publicist at FerenComm. Chandler Hayes joins her there as Director of Network of Program Publicity as well. He was previously the Publicity Director at ABC Ent. Group.

Susana Voets has been named vice president of communications for BBC Worldwide Productions and Adjacent Productions, the production arms of BBC Worldwide North America. Voets most recently worked as a publicity and talent relations consultant.

Richard Gay is the new EVP of Strategy & Operations, BET Networks. He previously held the same position in Viacom’s music division.

Following Charlie Collier’s appointment to AMC President & General Manager Collier to President & General Manager of both AMC and SundanceTV he has similarily expanded his senior management team’s roles across both divisions. Jan Diedrichsen who was AMC’s SVP of Affiliate Marketing has been named Exec. Director of SundanceTV. Marnie Black was promoted to EVP of Public Relations for AMC and SundanceTV. Others expanding their roles at AMC to include SundanceTV include: Tom Halleen in Programming & Scheduling, Mac McKean in Digital Media, Melanie Schneider in Research, Linda Schupack in Marketing and Joel Stillerman in Original Programming.

Alexandra Heidrich is the new Head of TV Sales & Acquisitions, Global Screen, up from Sales & Acquisitions Manager.

Joelly Mejia is new Manager of Development at Pie Town Productions. Joelly was previously a Development Producer at Figure 8 Films.

ITV Studios’ Shiver has hired on Richard Hastings to the new role of Creative Director of Factual Entertainment, Formats and Daytime. He will develop and produce factual entertainment programming at Shiver, from returning formats to factual-led entertainment for UK and international broadcasters. Previously at the BBC, he created BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen, BBC Two’s The Hairy Bikers’ Cook Off and BBC Three’s Young Talent Of The Year. Chris Leanza has been promoted from VP to SVP Development & Programming at Timberman/Beverly Productions. Axel Boehm is the new SVP of International Sales at Sonar Ent. He was previously SVP of European Sales at Red Arrow Ent. in Munich. Patrick Phelan is the new VP of International Sales at Sonar. He was formerly a Senior Sales Manager at Tandem/StudioCanal.

Roberto Ruiz has been upped from SVP to EVP of Strategy & Insights at Univision Communications.

Universal TV has brought on Mike Clements as their new EVP Comedy Development and will report to Universal TV president Bela Bajaria. Also joining is Jim Donnelly as SVP Comedy Development who will report to Clements.

Entertainment One Television has hired TV industry veteran Pancho Mansfield as President of Global Scripted Programming. Based in eOne’s L.A. office, Mansfield will head the studio’s original scripted slate and leading scripted efforts worldwide and work closely with eOne Television leadership to manage development and production efforts across eOne’s territories, including: U.S. Scripted Development led by Gerard Bocaccio; and Global Production, led by Carrie Stein.

Julie Pernworth has been promoted to EVP, Comedy Development for CBS and will oversee development of new CBS comedy series and report to CBS Entertainment chairman Nina Tassler. She takes over for EVP Wendi Trilling who announced she would be leaving recently after her 20 year plus tenure. Pernworth has worked closely with Trilling while she was SVP to develop shows like The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother.

Lucid Road Productions (shingle of Breaking Bad alum Aaron Paul) has closed a first-look deal with Hulu sibling Universal Television. The company produces The Way, a Hulu drama series Paul will star and produce.

Management, PR, Agencies

David Lust, who was most recently a VP at Rogers & Cowan has joined Integrated PR’s core West Coast team. Maggi L. Simpson also joins him. She was previously an in-house publicist for companies including Sony and Paramount Pictures.

Former ICM Partners talent agent Nigel Meiojas has left for UTA. Clients include Robert Duvall, Alexander Ludwig, Lucas Black, Kevin Zegers, Virginia Gardner, Josh Stewart, and Alyssa Sutherland are expected to follow.

Abrams Artists Agency has upped Manal Hammad to Agent in the newly formed Literary Division in the Los Angeles office, and promoted David Doerrer to Agent and Director of Foreign Rights in the Book Division in New York.

Independent PR firm DKC has landed John Singh as VP in the entertainment division’s Los Angeles office. Singh was previously a DreamWorks Animation exec. He will report directly to Joe Quenqua, director of DKC’s entertainment practice. Also, Christine Sun, who managed national publicity at Lionsgate, joins the firm’s New York office entertainment division. DKC’s clients include The Dr. Oz Show, History, PBS, Marvel, Sirius Satellite Radio and Univision.

David Doerrer has been upped to Agent and Director of Foreign Rights at Abrams Artists, up from Coordinator. Likewise Manal Hammad has been promoted from Coordinator to Literary Agent.

Peter Letz has been named Collective Digital Studio’s new Director of Gaming Network. He was previously a Principal at Cousin Pete Productions & Management.

Christine Sun is now an Account Executive, Entertainment at DKC. She was previously a Manager of National Publicity at Lionsgate.

Jayme Yarow has been upped from assistant to literary agent at Innovative Artists.

Manage-ment has signed on Corinne Hayoun to run its New York based headquarters, manage clients and continue to produce theater. Hayoun spent eight years at CAA repping stage talentand is a producer of the Jim Parsons-starrer Broadway play An Act Of God.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Annie Award winning animation veteran Eric Goldberg, with credits on Aladdin, Hercules and Fantasia/2000, has signed on with the faculty of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Starting fall 2015, he will teach classes on the fundamentals of character animation as part of the John C. Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts.

James Powell is the new Global Chief Technology Officer at Nielsen, he previously was the EVP, CTO at Thomson Reuters.

Domenic Venuto was named General Manager, AdFX, The Weather Company. He was formerly Global President, Data, Technology & Partnerships at VivaKi. Rhonda Bitterman has been named VP, Agency Partnerships & Development there. She was formerly the Sales Director at Pandora Radio.

Bryce Hunter has been named Senior Director, Strategy & Operations at Temple Street Media Ventures. He was previously Producer, Interactive at DHX Media.

Former EVP of Microsoft’s XBox Entertainment Studios, Jordan Levin has been hired by the NFL to be their first chief content officer, overseeing the league’s programming efforts. In his new role he will develop and implement content for the NFL Network and NFL Now online platforms and head the Super Bowl Halftime Show and work with other media partners that broadcast NFL games.

Teal Newland is the new SVP, Marketing & Partner Management, Condé Nast Entertainment. Previously Teal was VP Revenue, Marketing & Partnerships at StumbleUpon.

Dick Costolo is leaving Twitter where he held the post of CEO. Jack Dorsey, its chairman and co-founder, will take over as interim chief executive July 1 as Twitter looks for a permanent CEO. Meanwhile, Costolo will stay on Twitter’s board.

Erica Winograd has been named head of development at Vox Entertainment. She was previously Executive Director of Digital Content at FremantleMedia North America.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Peter Chernin has inked a two-year overall deal for his Chernin Television at NBCUniversal to develop and produce projects for NBC through Universal Television. Under the deal Chernin has the option to produce independently through cable and digital/streaming platforms. In concurrence, Jenno Topping has been upped to President of Film and Television.

Access Hollywood’s longtime co-anchor Shaun Robinson has left the show and inked a development deal with NBCUniversal Domestic TV Distribution to develop and/or produce scripted and unscripted TV projects across all platforms via her RobinHood Prods banner.

Huffington Post will launch HuffPost 24 later this year, a news network to be available through the website and apps. It will feature live programming, short-form video, original series, creator partners from YouTube and documentaries. They will also have corresponding film and television divisions that will produce content for HuffPost 24. The new initiatives will be overseen by video General Manager Nathan Brown.

ITV has acquired Boom Supervisory Limited, the holding company of Brit TV production banner Twofour Group. The group contains Twofour, Indus Films and Boomerang, which combined with their other production companies, have produced over 1,200 hours of programs. The company also owns Twofour Rights, and in-house distribution arm.

Liberty Global, the largest cable company in the world at 27 million customers, is in talks to acquire Ireland’s TV3, valued at $110 million in a bid to diversify their offerings.

Mr. Robot Showrunner Sam Esmail has inked a seven-figure overall deal with Universal Cable Prods. He will continue as EP/showrunner on the USA series while also developing and producing scripted programming via UCP with Anonymous Content to executive produce projects for NBCUniversal’s networks and other external channels.

Transparent series creator Jill Soloway has inked an overall deal with Amazon Studios to exclusively develop television projects for Amazon Prime through Soloway’s production company with partner Andrea Sperling. This comes on the heels of Amazon’s renewal of Transparent. With the deal, Sperling has been upped from co-EP to EP.

Writer Paul Downs Colaizzo has inked a two year overall deal with CBS TV Studios. The studio ordered his pilot LFE this past season. Under the deal, Colaizzo will create projects for broadcast and cable. He is repped by ICM Partners.

Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti’s Trigger Street have signed a two year first look deal with Fox 21. The studio recently acquired the rights to the book The Residence for a cable drama to be produced by Trigger Street. The deal was negotiated for Trigger Street through Hansen Jacobson and CAA.

Veteran SVP for Fox David Hill is leaving and will form his own production company to be backed by 21^st Century Fox. The move coincides with Rupert Murdoch’s departure from Fox who he worked closely with.

Entertainment One (eOne) and Creative England are partnering on a new TV venture to develop, finance and produce drama content intended for global consumption leveraging regional UK producers and creators. Creative England has invested over $22m into the UK creative industries across media and content platforms.

Its official, Verizon has acquired AOL in a $4.4 billion purchase agreement. CEO Tim Armstrong will continue to oversee his former company’s properties, reporting to Verizon Product Innovation and New Businesses President Mami Walden. Verizon Digital Media Services President Bob Toohey will report to Armstrong.

Brian Kavanaugh-Jones’ Automatik has inked a first look deal with Studio 8. Kavanaugh was behind Insidious: Chapter 3 and Autobahn with Nicholas Hoult and Felicity Jones. This is Studio 8’s third first-look deal after LBI and previous BFI Film Fund chief Tanya Seghatchian. Studio 8 has secured $1 billion in financing, funded in partnership with Chinese investment management firm Fosun Group and Sony Pictures, which will distribute up to six films worldwide annually.

Duplass Brothers Productions, hot off their exclusive two-year deal at HBO, where they have two series, have inked another deal, this time with indie film distributor The Orchard to handle worldwide theatrical and other rights to a slate of seven upcoming feature films produced by the duo. The films will be a part of the exclusive SVOD deal the Duplasses inked with Netflix in which the streaming service will finance four movies that will have limited theatrical releases before offered to Netflix subscribers.

EuropaCorp has snagged development executive Chris Coggins as their new VP Production and Development at EuropaCorp USA. She was previously at Rock Paper Scissors Entertainment, where she served as Head of Development and helped lead the company’s new-media projects for the Oscars, HBO and Amazon.

Shutterstock is partnering with Penske Media Corporation to create and license images and videos of events in entertainment and fashion. The alliance will join Shuttershock’s extensive stock-image tech with PMC’s photography from its events through their brands like Variety, WWD and Deadline.

The Nielsen Co. has hired banker Jordan Edmiston to analyze a possible sale of its National Research Group, Inc., one of the largest companies in entertainment which provides market research to film studios.

Film

Matt Kaplan has been tapped to be the President for Awesomeness Films and will oversee building the company’s film division. He was previously the SVP of Development and Production at Lionsgate. Awesomeness Films is on track to release 12-15 films for theatrical and digital film distribution focused on YA material and is in production on the film Shovel Buddies starring Bella Thorne. Robyn Marshall has been hired as a Film Executive there. She was previously the EVP of Development and Production at Chapter One Films. Max Siemers has likewise been tapped as a Film Executive. He was previously VP of Development and Production at Chapter One Films as well.

Ron Massucci has been named VP of Human Resources at Broad Green Pictures. He was previously the manager of HR at Sony Pictures.

Lionsgate senior executive Tim Palen has been upped to Chief Brand Officer and President of Worldwide Marketing, handling a team of 40 employees across multiple divisions and will be responsible for developing, extending and marketing the company’s individual brands, franchises and corporate branding initiatives. He will report to Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer and will continue to report to Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Co-Chairs Patrick Wachsberger and Rob Friedman. Marketing and Research SVP Jean McDowell will oversee marketing and distribution to be handled by Adam Sorensen, who currently manages Western Sales.

Sahar Moridani has been upped from assistant to Associate Executive Director at the DGA.

Former COO of Warp Films, Alex Marshall, has been hired as chief operating officer of Archery Pictures, the film and TV shingle under producer Kris Thykier and previous Scott Free UK head Liza Marshall.

Fox Searchlight has hired Katie Goodson-Thomas as director of productions and acquisitions of its UK operations. She was previously at film financier Ingenious. In her new role she will report to Fox Searchlight Pictures president of production Claudia Lewis.

Bold Films has tapped Karen Barna as their SVP of Business and Legal Affairs. She was previously at Summit for a decade. They’ve also upped Pili Allen to Manager of Marketing and Kate Ritter to CE. Barna will report to Bold CEO Gary Michael Walters. Allen was previously at WME and Ritter was formerly at Mandalay Pictures.

TV

Former Chernin TV President Katherine Pope has been picked up to run Studio 8’s newly launched TV division. Studio 8 does have a deal with Sony on the film side, but not on the TV side. In her new role Pope will handle Studio 8’s TV development slate of comedy and drama projects for network and cable.

Entertainment One (eOne) is expanding its Alternative TV Programming Division through a series of executive appointments. Seasoned unscripted producer Mark Herwick has been appointed as Head of Current, U.S. Alternative Programming for the company. Ben Megargel joins the division as Senior Director of Development; Jesse Daniels has been hired to the role of Director of Development; and Elliot Schwartz has been promoted to the title of Manager of Development. Megargel, Daniels and Schwartz will collaborate with the VPs of Development to strategically increase the breadth eOne’s existing slate of unscripted series.

OWN has upped Maitee Cureva to SVP Programming and Development from her previous role as VP. She’s been at the company since 2010. In her new role she will handle programming and development for the network’s Saturday night programming as well as other content development initiatives.

Turner Broadcasting System has upped Rachelle Savoia to VP of communications. Savoia will oversee Turner Content Distribution, the unit with Turner’s 10 domestic cable networks, and Turner Classic Movies. She will report to SVP Sal Petruzzi. Previously, Savoia worked for NBCUniversal’s Bravo network,  Oxygen, Court TV, and Goodman Media International.

Julie Pernworth has been upped from SVP to EVP of Comedy Development at CBS Ent.

Greg Sanderson has been named Brook Lapping’s Managing Director. He was previously a Commissioning Editor of Arts & Music at BBC in London.

AMC Studios is branching off with its own leadership under new co-heads Rick Olshansky (Head of Business Affairs) and Stefan Reinhardt (SVP of Finance and Studio Ops). They will oversee production and business affairs functions of AMC and SundanceTV and report to President Charlie Collier. In part, VP of Business Affairs Scott Stein has been upped to SVP and will lead the negotiation of development and production agreements for AMC Studios original productions.

Nick Lee has been promoted from head of development and executive producer at Good Clean Fun to President. The production company’s projects include VH1’s Barely Famous and TBS’ Meet The Smiths among others.

A+E Networks has named Edward Sabin Managing their Director, Americas, and Head of Commercial Operations, International. He will handle global strategic and operational initiatives and teams; manage commercial policy and coordination on global ad sales and distribution; and evaluate and enhance A+E’s global and local approaches to business functions. He was previously at Discovery, where he was their COO .

Producer Chris Provenzano has inked an overall deal with AMC. Under the deal, he is developing a drama series based on Elmore Leonard’s 1979 novel Gunsights. Previously he was the EP on the FX drama Justified, based on another Leonard book, Fire In The Hole.

Michele Buck is the new CEO of Company Pictures in London. Previously he co-founded the Joint Managing Director of Mammoth Screen.

Yue Zhuge has come on board as the new VP, research and development at Hulu’s Beijing office and will report to CTO Tiam Lim, Zhuge to play a key role in the development of software and technology initiatives. She previously held senior positions with Microsoft and Beijing Yahoo. Most recently, Zhuge founded and served as the CEO for Landscape Mobile, creator of the Sight app.

Donna Clark is now Acting Head of Formats & Features at BBC in London. She was previously Director of Factual for Lion TV.

Raymond Dooley has been named VP of Marketing of truTV. He held the same title previously at SundanceTV.

Producer Elizabeth Guber Stephen has signed an overall deal with Warner Bros. TV to develop and produce network and cable projects through her company Gables Media. She is already developing a limited series adaptation of the book They Wished They Were Honest: The Knapp Commission And New York City Police Corruption by Michael Armstrong. She previously had a first-look deal at Fox 21 Studios.

Bill Carter, the former New York Times television reporter and author, is joining CNN as a contributor. Carter will offer reporting, analysis and commentary on the top media stories across CNN’s television and digital platforms, reuniting with former New York Times beat colleague Brian Stelter. Previously, Carter was with the New York Times for more than 25 years as a media writer, covering the television industry.

Roy Ackerman has shifted from Managing Director of Fresh One Productions to Managing Director of Non-Scripted TV for Pulse Films in London. Emma Cooper is a new Creative Director of Non-Scripted TV at Pulse Films. She was previously a Commissioning Editor of Documentaries at Channel 4.

Adam Blumberg is the new VP of TV at Hyde Park Ent. He was previously Director of Development at eOne TV.

Cyrus Farrokh has expanded his role as VP of Asia Pacific at Electus to include North America. Raymond Galaviz is a new Manager of Creative Development & Talent at Electus. He was upped form the Coordinator position. Brad Jorgensen has been promoted from VP to SVP of Worldwide Operations. Sean Canino has been promoted to VP of Creative Development in Unscripted TV from Director at Electus. Montrel McKay has been upped from Director to VP of Creative Development. Max Levenson has been promoted from assistant to Manager of Current & Creative Development. Diego Piasek has been promoted from Executive Director to VP of International Distribution & Production. Julie Shapiro has made the leap from Senior Counsel to VP of Legal & Business Affairs. KC Walker has been promoted from Director to Executive Director of Marketing Solutions at the company.

Cindy Kain is the new VP of Current Production at The Studio. She was previously Director of Production for TLC.

Nick Lee has been promoted from Head of Development and EP to President and EP at Good Clean Fun.

Lauren Stein has been named SVP of Drama Development at Sony Pictures TV. She was previously Chernin Ent’s SVP of TV Drama Development.

Scott Stemmermann has been named vice president, digital marketing, NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution.

Management, PR, Agencies

Molly Barnett has been named VP of O&M Company’s Theatre Division, up from Sr. Press Agent there.

Jim Osborne has been named partner at APA. He is also the VP of Talent.

Gerilyn Shur is the new Director of National PR for Allied Integrated Marketing. She was previously the Director of National PR at Brigade Marketing.

Matt Gogal has been upped from Agent to President of Talent House LA.

David Lust has been named Integrated PR’s new VP. He was previously VP at Rogers & Cowan.

Maggi L. Simpson has been named the new VP for Integrated PR.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Seth Laderman has been named EVP and GM of the new subscription streaming service from Lionsgate and Comic-Con International. The platform will debut in the first quarter of 2016. It will feature original short-form content created exclusively for the channel’s subscribers, as well as films and television series from Lionsgate and other studios targeting the Comic-Con fan base, and exclusive archived footage from Comic-Con’s 45-year history. Laderman was previously head of production for Legendary Digital and Nerdist Industries where he helped to spearhead the digital growth of YouTube content.

The Endemol Shine Group is launching a Commercial Partnerships Team, joining Shine 360° and Endemol international commercial teams to support their local commercial teams around the world to be overseen by Branco Scherer, upped from Managing Director. Lorraine Burgess has been named the Director of Commercial and Digital Development. Frances Adams will be the Director of Brand Development and focus on brand management for global properties. Ingrid Akkerman has been named Director of Brand Relations and Mark Rosenegk the Director of Brand Partnerships. Tom Jeans will be the Director of Commercial and Business Affairs and will handle the roll out of foreign licensing delas. Karen Maldoy will be the Senior Manager, Digital Products and Joe Pietroni has been named Director of App Development handling the development of in-house digital apps and games that can be adapted for entertainment brands around the world.

Josh Dammers has been named Director of Brand Partnerships at DigiTour. He was previously Executive Director of Data Driven Media at the Meredith Corporation. Linnea Stalberg has been hired on as SVP of Marketing at DigiTour. Linnea was previously VP of Marketing and Production at SpinMedia.

Anna Murray has been upped from Project Manager to Director, Brand Management & Special Projects at Ribbow Media in Nashville.

David O’Connor has left CAA to become the CEO of Madison Square Garden. He was behind the formation of CAA Sports and while at the agency his client list included Jerry Bruckheimer, Bruce Willis, David Koepp and director Gary Ross. No date of his leave from CAA has been set.

News organization IBT Media has named Mitchell Caplan CMO, to lead brand development and ad revenue. Caplan was most recently chief marketing officer at Olson.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Alibaba Group has partnered with Chinese film company DMG and Hunan TV to bundle subscription-based Internet, cable and mobile entertainment, along with gaming, film and TV content, to Chinese consumers for the first time. The service will be offered to Hunan TV’s six million cable TV subscribers first and then roll out to China. Alibaba Pictures has been making strides as of late, co-financing Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.

Cynthia Cidre has signed a two-year overall deal with ABC Studios. That’s the same studio that produces Blood and Oil which she executive produces in addition to being the showrunner. During her new deal she will develop new projects for network, cable, and streaming services.

Vivendi has acquired French video sharing site Dailymotion, which offers a high end, more B2B focus and synergies with Vivendi’s other media assets Canal Plus and, chiefly, Universal Music Group. It also offers the opportunity to potentially build a pan-European OTT rival to Netflix ahead of the SVOD giant’s continued expansion into Southern Europe later this year.

Empire EP and co-creator Lee Daniels has signed a multiyear overall deal with 20th Century Fox Television, which produces the Fox drama. Under the broad pact, Daniels will continue as an executive producer on Empire and develop, write, direct and supervise new projects under his Lee Daniels Entertainment banner. In addition he’s signed on to direct The Ten Commandments Project ordered to series by WGN America.

XLrator Media has joined Parkside Pictures and Tadross Media Group in a deal to co-produce and distribute worldwide a multi-picture production slate. Their first film is the action thriller If, with shooting to start in fall. Xlrator’s other co-production deals include one with New Artists Alliance for three sci-fi thrillers and Benattar/Thomas for three action-thrillers. Additionally, Parkside is financing some of the pictures in those deals.

WB has signed a global multi-series deal with Turner Broadcasting for Boomerang and will involve Boomerang’s classic animation portfolio from the Hanna-Barbera, MGM and Warner Bros. Animation collection, around 3,500 titles. The first of Boomerang’s new original series from Warner Bros Animation is Bunnicula, an animated comedy series based on the bestselling children’s book to debut in fall.

Danny Chun has re-upped his overall deal with ABC Studios for another two years. His series Grandfathered was picked up to series for fall and will star John Stamos, and was developed at ABC Studios. In addition he also wrote and executive produced another ABC Studios comedy project that went to pilot, ABC’s Delores & Jermaine starring Whoopi Goldberg.

Veena Sud has signed a premium development deal with Fox 21 TV Studios where she developed The Killing, on which she is the series creator and EP that ran for four seasons on AMC and then Netflix. Under the deal she will develop a new cable drama series.

AMC Networks has separated out AMC Studios and placed it under the leadership of Rick Olshansky and Stefan Reinhardt and they will oversee production and business affairs functions across AMC and SundanceTV. Olshansky is the current AMC head of business affairs while Reinhardt is AMC Networks SVP of Finance and Studio Operations. Joel Stillerman who was previously running the Studio has part of his role as the original programming chief will have an increased focus on development. The AMC Global channel, which launched in late 2014 will premiere AMC Studios’ series, Fear The Walking Dead this summer to be followed by Into The Badlands. As part of the shift, VP of Business Affairs Scott Stein will be upped to SVP of Business Affairs for AMC and head the negotiation of development and production agreements for AMC Studios original productions.

Kin Community has launched branded content house Kin Studios. The studio will be headed by longtime Kin executives Lauren Merriam, VP of sales, and Beth Le Manach, VP of programming. The studio has already lined up branded content deals with Beiersdorf, P&G and Wilton. Jennifer McDonnell, Kin’s VP of partnerships, will oversee the network of creators at the new studio. Services will include content ideation and in-house production services, along with customized campaigns, premium media and social activations.

Cinedigm has invested in Shout! Factory and the agreement will extend their DVD and video distribution deal. Shout! Factory currently runs Shout!Factory TV, an ad supported video streaming channel that will be revamped.

FILM

DreamWorks Animation has snagged former Fox executive Dan Berger as their Sr. VP Corporate Communications. Prior to Dreamworks, Berger spent nine years at Fox, during which he was a VP Communications for News Corp. and separately held that position for Fox Interactive Media.

Jody Arlington has been named Head, Film Press & Publicity, SXSW Film. She was previously the Director of Communications of IFP in New York.

Sean Berney has been named Fox Searchlight’s Manager of Acquisitions. He formerly had that role at IFC Films/Sundance Selects/IFC Midnight.

Disney has upped Christine McCarthy, their Treasurer for 15 years to CFO, replacing Jay Rasulo with a contract running through 2019. She’ll oversee Investor Relations, Corporate Planning and Control, Tax, Corporate Treasury, Corporate Real Estate, Facilities, Integrated Supply Chain Management, and Corporate Citizenship. They also promoted Kevin Mayer to Chief Strategy Officer, up from Corporate Strategy and Business Development EVP. He will report to Iger and COO Thomas Staggs. Leslie Ferraro and Jimmy Pitaro have been named Co-Chair, Disney Consumer Products & Interactive Media and President, Disney Consumer Products.

Emmy Chang has been named the VP of Publicity at Broad Green Pictures. She previously held that title at The Weinstein Company.

Paramount Pictures is losing their president of domestic distribution, Don Harris, after 14 years. He will exit and the studio expects to find a replacement within 60 days. He will stay through the release of Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation on July 31st.

Julie Candelaria has been promoted to SVP Marketing at indie distributor Gravitas Ventures. Nancy Sanchez also signs on as Marketing Manager from creative marketing industry firm InSync + BemisBalkind where clients included Universal, The Weinstein Company, Fox and HBO. The company has also hired AJ Feuerman as director of public relations and will oversee social media strategy, planning and executing publicity campaigns. She previously was at AEG Live, Millennium Ent. and Crown Media Family Networks.

JJ Meyers has been upped to Creative Executive at Voltage Films. JJ was previously a coordinator.

Francis Ford Coppola has been named president of The 15th Marrakech Film Festival to be held December 4-12. The acclaimed director follows Martin Scorsese, who was president in 2013, and Isabelle Huppert, who was president in 2014.

Paris Barclay has been re-elected president of the Directors Guild of America by 138 delegates representing more than 16,000 guild members. Barclay joined the DGA in 1992 was elected VP in 1999, serving in that role until he was elected president in 2013.

TV

Owen Shiflett has been named Parkes + MacDonald’s new head of TV. In his new role he will handle TV development and production under Parkes + MacDonald’s first-look deal with Universal TV. One of the first projects they’re developing is a TV drama adaptation of RASL, the Sci-Fi noir comic book by award-winning creator Jeff Smith.

Jason Serota has made the leap from Executive Assistant to Director of Development at Dark Toy Entertainment.

21st Century Fox has hired Brian Sullivan as their President of Digital for Fox Networks Group and will handle strategy in the direct-to-consumer digital video category, tasked with driving growth across FoxNow, FXNow, Fox Sports Go and FNG’s international Fox Play products. Previously he was the CEO of Sky Deutschland since 2010.

Alison Engel has been named Director of Original Series at Netflix. She was formerly the VP of Creative Affairs at Gaumont International Television.

Jesse Daniels has been named the Director of Development, Alternative Programming, Entertainment One. Previously Jesses was the Manager of Development at Maverick TV. Mark Herwick has been named the Head of Current, U.S. Alternative Programming. His credits include EP and showrunner on Botched. Ben Megargel has been named the Senior Director of Development, Alternative Programming. He was snagged from Karga Seven Pictures where he was Director of Development. Elliot Schwartz has been upped from Executive Assistant to Manager of Development in Alternative, Programming at Entertainment One.

Annie Roberts has been promoted from Executive Director to VP of Casting & Talent Development, E! Entertainment.

Adam Stern has been hired as the Director of Gotham Group’s TV Development department. He was previously a manager of Scripted Series Development at Xbox Entertainment Studios.

Jose Luis Ortega has been named Fox Deportes’ Director of Digital. He was formerly the Director at Red Viacom, Viacom International Media Networks. Sandra Rojas has been named the Director of Marketing there. She was previously the Director of Marketing at A&E Networks Latin America. Mark Simmons has been named the VP of On-Air Promotions. He was formerly the Executive Creative Director, FOX Sports Australia.

Management, PR, Agencies

Magnet Management has upped literary manager Christopher Mills to Partner. He’s been there since 2005. It coincides with the partner promotion of Jennie Frisbie, Bob Sobhani, Mitch Solomon and Zach Tann as well. The company’s also added literary manager Chris Emerson, who previously ran his own company, E-Squared.

A.J. Harris is the new head of Literary at The Savage Agency. He was previously an assistant in their commercial department.

Martin To has been hired on a lit agent at Equitable Stewardship for Artists. He was previously a coordinator at UTA.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Creative marketing agency Pongo has snagged former Disney Channel VP of Marketing, Ron Pomerantz, to become VP Content & Strategy. He will handle the new creative content division for Pongo, and develop and produce interstitial content, PSAs, commercials and business-to-business integration as the company expands its client offering to philanthropic arms.

Innocean Worldwide Americas has named Steve Jun CEO, replacing Tony Kim on July 29. Jun has been chief executive for Innocean’s European operations.

Team One has named Jon Ruppel creative director, and will focus on creative technology and digital product development. Ruppel was previously at TBWA/Chiat/Day and Schematic.

Magic Leap, a “mixed reality” based in Florida has hired Vevo‘s former president and Chief Executive Officer Rio Caraeff as their Chief Content Officer. Caraeff will bring over 20 years of experience in entertainment, video and media to Magic Leap. Magic Leap first got noticed as a developer for a physical device to view augmented reality. The company continues to expand into the development of VR-friendly formats.

Nicholas Blechman was named creative director of The New Yorker.

TBWA Worldwide has hired Chris Garbutt as global creative president, working with global clients including Nissan, McDonalds and Adidas. Previously he was chief creative officer at Ogilvy & Mather East in New York.

Meredith Gardner who is the VP of Digital Marketing at Capitol Music Group has expanded her role to include Product. Josh Kahn has been named VP of Digital Marketing & Product, up from Head of Digital Design.

Marketing consultancy Gain Theory has named Karen Kaufman managing partner for client development, to handle the North America and Latin American regions. Kaufman previously worked in GroupM’s consulting practice.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Temple Hill, which just snapped up former Xbox Entertainment Studios exec Albert Page as head of its TV division, has inked a two-year overall deal with 20th Century Fox TV Studios. The team of Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey and Page will develop new projects for the studio in addition to the picked up Fox drama pilot Rosewood. Prior, Temple Hill had an overall deal with ABC Studios.

Universal Cable Productions has signed Dark Horse Entertainment to a first look deal with an emphasis on developing and producing scripted programming from their comic book library along with new material. New projects include Harrow County, Umbrella Academy, Back Up and Concrete.

German media powerhouses ProSiebenSat and Axel Springer are in talks to merge. ProSiebenSat is worth over $10 billion and has a 28% share of Germany’s free-TV market while Alex Springer, valued around $5 billion owns the country’s bestselling daily newspaper Bild.

Jane Tranter has left BBC Worldwide Productions & Adjacent Productions which she’s headed since 2009 to launch her as of yet unnamed production company together with Julie Gardner who executive produced Doctor Who. She will be replaced by Matt Forde, BBC’s EVP TV Sales & Digital Distribution, who will head both LA-based production units as their EVP of Content Production, Sales and Distribution and report to Ann Sarnoff.

FILM

Broad Green Pictures has signed on Marc Danon as President of acquisitions and co-productions. He was previously the SVP of acquisitions and business development at Lionsgate. He will now oversee a team bringing in both wide commercial release as well as prestige platform pre-buys and organize the studio’s festival acquisition strategy and the preparation for such festivals.

Universal Filmed Entertainment Group has snagged Clarissa Weirick as their General Counsel after 18 years at WB. She most recently worked in WB’s Home Entertainment division. At Universal she will manage all legal issues impacting the Filmed Entertainment Group and jointly oversee the various legal departments and work closely with the NBCUniversal corporate legal resources on corporate transactional, litigation and other legal matters.

Todd Cohen has been promoted from SVP to EVP of Development at Karga Seven Pictures. Suzanne Rauscher has been upped from VP to SVP of Current Programming. Angela Teed has been named the VP of Production at Karga. She was previously their Executive in Charge of Production. Scott Hunter has been promoted at Karga from Coordinator to Manager of Development.

Fox Searchlight Pictures has upped Matthew Greenfield and David Greenbaum to EVP’s of production. They will jointly lead all aspects of the production department and continue to report President of Production Claudia Lewis. Formerly Greenfield was a senior exec at Fox Searchlight as was Greenbaum. Additionally Greenbaum was involved in the Fox Innovation Lab where he oversaw the studio’s first virtual reality production, Wild: The Experience.

Ian Dalrymple has been hired by Pascal Pictures to run a New York outpost. He was formerly a creative exec at Scott Rudin Productions. He will report to O’Connor, who left her Sony position as SVP to join Amy Pascal in her new production company.

Casey O’Brien has moved from The Koch Company to Code Entertainment where he retains the same position as a CE.

TV

CBS TV Studios has named Alec Botnick as their VP of Comedy Development. Previously he spent six years as a TV lit agent at WME. He will report to EVP Comedy Development Kate Adler in his new role.

Carolyn Cassidy has been named the SVP of Current Programming at 20^th Century Fox TV, taking over for Jeffrey Glaser. Glaser will be on hand as a consultant during the transition. Cassidy joined Fox in 2009 as VP of Comedy Series and was promoted in 2013. She recently oversaw the development of ABC’s hit Fresh Off the Boat and Fox’s anticipated The Grinder.

Raymond Dooley was named VP of Marketing for truTV.

Jordanna Guarino is a new Manager of Development at Universal Cable Productions. She was previously Jeff Wachtel’s executive assistant at NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment.

Lori Hall has been named TV One’s SVP of Marketing. She was previously the VP of Consumer Marketing at UP TV.

Albert Page has been named the Head of TV at Temple Street Productions. He was previously the VP of Creative at Xbox Ent. Studios.

Benny Reuven has been hired at Oxygen Media as their VP of Development and will develop lifestyle programming for the network’s multicultural female audience. Based in Los Angeles, Reuven will report to Cori Abraham, SVP Development & International at Oxygen Media.

Mark Pesavento has joined Fox Sports Digital as SVP Content and will handle editorial and video content Fox Sports with an emphasis on multiplatform programming and growth through mobile consumption and social media sharing. He was formerly at USA Today Sports Media Group as their VP Digital Strategy and before that at Yahoo! Sports.

Gina Girolamo has been named the SVP of TV Production and Development at Alloy Entertainment. She hails from Working Title Films where she was EVP of TV and before that Wonderland Sound and Vision. She has worked for Ally previously, having executive produced eight projects to pilot and series her three years there.

Mike Kerns has been snapped up by The Chernin Group as their new President of Digital and will work with Chairman Peter Chernin and President Jesse Jacobs. He was previously in charge of Yahoo’s home page and video verticals under CEO Marissa Mayer.

FX Networks has upped five senior marketing executives. Sally Daws has been promoted to EVP, Marketing and Digital Media and will oversee advertising, consumer integrated promotions, and digital media. John Varvi has been named EVP, On-Air Promotions. Todd Heughens has been upped to SVP, Print Design and will give daily oversight of digital media efforts. Jason Phipps is SVP of Digital Media and Lance Reiss has been upped to SVP of Marketing and will handle advertising, content distribution, and finance among other areas. They will all report to Stephanie Gibbons, President, Marketing, Digital Media and On-Air Promotions.

Peter Barnett has left his post as Gaumont International Television’s SVP of Production to pursue producing independent projects.

Univision News, the news division of Univision Communications Inc., has named Keith Summa as their SVP of Content Innovation to report directly to Isaac Lee, president of News and Digital for UCI and CEO of Fusion. He will lead development of journalistic tools, models and narratives for the operation, also working with Fusion, the millennial-targeting joint venture between Univision and ABC. Prior to this new role, Summa was Vice President of News Partnerships for Univision News; he was previously head of the CBS News Investigative Unit.

John Cora has been hired as Sprout’s VP of Insights & Strategy. He previously held the same title at Fox Networks Group.

Benny Reuven has shifted from VP of Development at Wilshire Studios to the same position at Oxygen Media.

Janine Sherman Barrois has inked a multi-year overall deal at Warner Bros. Television to create and develop new drama and comedy series. Previously she was an executive producer on ER and Criminal Minds and was a graduate of Warner Bros. Writers’ Workshop. In 2013 she had a deal with ABC Studios.

Marina Williams has shifted from CEO of Central and Eastern Europe and MENA regions, Endemol Shine Group to COO of International Operations for the Endemol Shine Group in London. Matthew Borst was upped to Director of Social Media and Sales Strategy for Endemol Beyond at Endemol Shine North America. He joined ESNA last year as Social Media Manager.

Management, PR, Agencies

Helen Brann who runs a self-named lit agency has made a deal with ICM Partners to bring her writers over to ICM upon her retirement. Brann began her career in 1968 working with Sterling Lord before handling 60 clients and in 1973 and becoming the first woman in the U.S. to have her own independent literary agency representing book writers.

Alex Creasia has shifted from Vol. Unlimited Ent to Dialed-In Ent. and will retain her position as a Literary Manager.

CAA has picked James Burtson as their new CFO, replacing Jeff Berry on July 13. He was formerly a Time Warner SVP, handling global mergers and acquisitions and involved with the spin offs of Time Warner Cable, AOL and Time Inc., and content and new media property buys.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Maxime Saada has been named the CEO of Canal Plus Group in Paris, taking over for Rodolphe Belmer. Maxime was upped from EVP and Head of Pay TV.

Pongo has hired Ron Pomerantz as their VP of Content + Strategy. Pomerantz joins Pongo from the Disney Channel, where he had been Vice President, Marketing + Creative.

Charlotte Koh has been named GoPro’s Head of Features and Series. She was snagged from Hulu where she was Head of Original Content.

iHeartMedia hired Carter Brokaw as President of Digital Revenue Strategy. Brokaw was most recently EVP at Guardian News and Media, where he handled the company’s U.S. commercial strategy, positioning, pricing, packaging and tiered accounts.

Jacqueline Sheehy has been hired on as Edelman’s Director of Brand Partnerships. She was previously Director of Sales & Branded Integrations, Collective Digital Studio.

Company Launches, Partnerships & Deals

Kiliaen Van Rensselaer is leaving Fox Television Group to launch Insurrection Media, a digital TV studio with a goal to create content to be shopped to OTT providers as the first window of distribution. Allen DeBevoise’s Third Wave Capital Partners made an equity capital investment in Insurrection, and will serve on the board of advisors.

Disney’s Maker Studios has acquired start-up Instafluence as a way to connect social influencers with advertisers. Instafluence reports 10,000 sponsored posts on popular networks, resulting in more than 150 million engagements for brands including PacSun, Crossmedia and VH1.

Vice Media inked a multiyear deal to provide content for Verizon’s upcoming Internet TV service, including exclusive programming. Verizon’s new service is expected to launch later this year, with Viacom, AwesomenessTV, Scripps Networks Interactive, as well as ESPN and CBS Sports for college sports programming. They’ve also recently locked in deals with Spotify, Samsung and Snapchat.

Comcast and Electronic Arts (EA) have partnered to develop an HD gaming platform on X1 called Xfinity Games. It will be streamed over the Internet to customers’ X1 set-top boxes and the games would count under Xfinity Internet data plans.

The Wall Group, an artist management and consulting agency has been acquired by WME | IMG. The agency also advises commercial and luxury brands such as P&G, Unilever, Target, and Chanel. The Wall Group will continue to operate as a separate entity with its leadership team, including Founder Brooke Wall and Directors Ali Bird and Kate Stirling, continuing in their current roles.

Alchemy has acquired ANconnect and Anderson Digital and has formed a strategic alliance with ARC Entertainment. As part of the deal Charlie Anderson has become an investor in Alchemy. Distribution company Alchemy is an aggregator for Walmart and Target with an annual content flow to more than 1,300 films and 3,000-plus television episodes. ARC is a family and faith-based supplier to Walmart among others. In addition, Alchemy will financially support the Bentonville Film Festival.

Forrest Lucas and Ali Afshar have partnered together to launch ESX Entertainment, a production company with an aim to develop and finance three to six commercial projects a year across feature films and digital/TV series. This is Lucas’ first foray into film. He is the founder and owner of Lucas Oil Products, MAVTV and Lucas Cattle Company. Afshar’s pre-existing ESX Productions will fold into the company with its upcoming films including the drama The Wrong Side of Right with Lea Thompson, the coming-of-age story The Wizard starring Jon Voight and Born To Race films.

VOD platform MUBI has signed a multiyear distribution deal with Sony Pictures Television exclusive to the UK market and will feature classic titles including Taxi Driver, Closer, Dr.Strangelove and Snatch. MUBI’s USP is offering viewers a selective service like an online film festival, with a new film highlighted every day. MUBI has recently partnered with eOne, Icon and StudioCanal.

Keshet International (KI), the global distribution and production arm of Keshet Media Group, has established Keshet Studios, the company’s new LA-based studio which will oversee development, production, packaging, promotion and sales of KI’s scripted programming activities in the US. Veteran television executive Peter Traugott has been named Keshet Studios’ President of Scripted, while Rachel Kaplan also joins as EVP. Traugott joins Keshet Studios directly from TBD Entertainment, a television production company he founded, and will oversee the new studio’s slate of scripted projects with Kaplan, who also comes from TBD. Keshet Studios is represented by WME’s Rick Rosen and Marc Korman.

Film

Broad Green Pictures has tapped Dave Saxena as Chief Investment Officer of Broad Green Investments, the studio’s new private equity and venture capital arm. He will run the company’s investment efforts focused on media, technology and entertainment businesses that are complementary to the studio’s core creative and distribution operations. Marc Danon has been named the company’s President of Acquisitions & Co-Productions. He was previously Lionsgate’s SVP of Acquisitions & Business Development.

Athina Rachel Tsangari has become the third filmmaker in residence at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. During her residency, Tsangari will be working on White Knuckles, described as a screwball action-thriller that centers on two criminal sisters. Her newest feature, Chevalier, a buddy comedy set aboard a luxury yacht astray on the Aegean Sea, will have its world premiere in August at the Locarno l Film Festival.

Stuart Brown has been named the Head of Programming & Acquisitions at the BFI to report to Creative Director Heather Stewart. He was promoted from his post as Head of Events. His new aim will be to maximize the cultural and commercial performance of BFI cinemas and BFI distribution across UK theatrical, non-theatrical, DVD, VOD and international tours of BFI programs.

Kori Bernards will be leaving Universal Pictures after seven years as chief communications strategist and lead spokesperson. Universal hopes to announce a new head of communications in the coming weeks. Bernards will be staying on for the transition and will continue to serve as an advisor through the process.

TV

Starz has tapped TWC’s CMO Jeffrey Hirsch to be their President of Global Marketing and Product Planning. He’ll report to Starz CEO Chris Albrecht and oversee new products and services, boost awareness of Starz’ original programming, and help with strategy and distribution.

Alec Botnick has been named the VP of Comedy Development at CBS TV Studios. He was previously an agent of Scripted TV at WME.

Chris Salvaterra is now a Production Executive of Miniseries at HBO. He was previously a producer at Katonah Pictures.

Eli Shibley has been tapped by IM Global’s TV division as their new President, International Distribution and Co-Productions. He will work with IM Global founder and CEO Stuart Ford and IM Global TV president Mark Stern. He will oversee sales of their scripted slate as well as acquisitions of third-party scripted and unscripted projects from U.S., UK, and international content partners.

Chanel Carmona has been promoted from manager to associate director of development, original series at CNN. Lizzie Kerner is the new VP of Original Series at CNN and was upped from Sr. Director.

Jocelyn Hamilton has been named the President of eOne TV. She was previously the VP of Original Programming & Production, Corus Entertainment.

Dean Possenniskie is taking over for Tom Davidson in his role as A+E Networks UK Managing Director after his departure July 20. Possenniskie is a board member of the A+E/Sky joint venture and will continue in that role along with his new responsibilities.

Eli Shibley has been named the President of International Distribution & Co-Productions, IM Global Television. He was previously the SVP of International Media & Formats at Electus.

Shelly Tseng has been upped from exec. assistant to manager of talent development and programming at GSN.

Jonathan Hewes has been named the CEO of Mentorn Media and Pioneer Productions in London. He was previously the head of International at Wall to Wall.

Angelique Mais is the new VP of Creative Services, TV One. She was formerly the Creative Director, Brand Creative at A&E Networks.

Christel S. Miller has been upped from Manager to Director of Current Programming, NBC Entertainment.

BBC Worldwide North America has tapped Dawn Williamson to be their SVP, Advertising Sales and Tim Wastney to VP, Advertising Sales. Williamson will handle the delivery of ad sales revenues for BBC.com in North America and global sales originating from the U.S. for BBC.com and BBC World News, along with TopGear.com and bbcgoodfood.com. Formerly a VP at BBC Advertising, Wastney will drive ad sales across all the BBC’s key businesses both nationally and internationally.

Kerri Hendry has been named the VP of Current Programming at Lionsgate Television. She was tapped from eOne TV where Kerri was Director, Current Programming.

Jane Rimer has been named the Chief of International Business & Creative Development, Insight Productions. She was previously a consultant there.

Hannah Wyatt has been upped from Creative Director to Managing Director of Boundless Productions in London.

Vivian Yin has been named FremantleMedia China’s CEO. She was previously the VP of Production and Chief Representative for Star China.

Management, PR, Agencies

Entertainment agency United Entertainment Group has promoted Mary Scott to president of sports and brand experiences and Robby Wells to CSO. Scott had been managing director, while Wells was previously executive vice president of strategy and creative development. The agency has also brought on Gabe Banner as SVP of brand experiences, Nicole Bradley as VP of communications, Dave Santaniello as SVP of rights and partnerships and Melanie Washington as VP of brand experiences.

ICM Partners has hired Hilary Baum McQuaide, formerly a partner at Skouras Agency, as an agent in their Motion Picture Production Department. Rebecca Ewing, previously of Intellectual Artists Management was tapped as an agent in ICM’s Motion Picture Literary Department. Taryn Ariel, formerly a comedy agent based in APA’s New York office, has been tapped as a talent agent focusing on comedy development. Kati Kolben has been promoted to agent status and has been with ICM since 2011.

United Artists Media Group, the joint venture from Hearst, MGM and producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey has tapped William Eide as their SVP Corporate Development and he will report to CEO Burnett and COO Brian Edwards. In his new role he will evaluate and execute new growth initiatives including organic opportunities, acquisitions and investments.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

The Chernin Group hired Mike Kerns as President of Digital. He will also join the board of Otter Media, the company’s venture with AT+T. Kerns was previously at Yahoo, where he was Senior Vice President of Product, Homepage and Verticals.

Deborah K. Bothun formerly the Entertainment, Media & Communications U.S. Leader at PwC has had her role expanded from U.S. to Global.

Jeff Ivers has left Participant Media as their COO. No word yet on his next role.

Polly Auritt has been named the VP of Scripted Programming at Fullscreen. She hails from MTV where she was VP of Scripted Series Development.

Mashable has hired Juana Summers as a politics editor ahead of the 2016 elections, a new position at the website. Summers previously covered Congress at NPR.

Adam Soldinger has been hired by The Huffington Post as VP in charge of video programming and operations. Previously he served as the head of business development and strategic partnerships for Say Media’s digital magazine publishing platform Tempest and prior to that he was a VP at Complex Media.

Don Steele, previously the SVP of Fan Engagement & Multi-Platform Marketing at Comedy Central has been tapped by Tumblr as their new head of Audience Development. Evan Minskoff is coming onboard as well as the new Head of Marketing & Operations.

Damon Williams has been upped from VP to SVP of Programming Strategy & Partnerships at Music Now.

Company Launches & Partnerships

Chinese investment backed Hero Films has launched to be headed by chairman Peter Luo with offices in Melbourne and LA. They will finance, produce and distribute keying on the U.S. and China markets 3-5 films a year with financial partner China Wit Media. The $15 million budgeted Manhattan Love Story is already in the works with Adrien Brody starring.

The FCC has approved the $49 billion merger between AT&T and DirecTV, combined they’ll have an estimated 26 million cable and satellite subscribers. The approval comes with the condition they grow its high-speed fiber network and build on the FCC’s Open Internet Order.

Kiliaen Van Rensselaer has formed digital studio Insurrection Media. Kiliaen was previously SVP of Multi-Platform Programming, FOX. At his new shingle he will produce TV series for digital-first distribution.

London-based producer Spencer Soloman has launched Barking Duck Productions. The shingle will develop narrative film, documentaries, scripted drama and comedy for audiences in both the U.S. and the UK.

FILM

Warner Bros-based and financing company Gulfstream Pictures has tapped Vandalia Films’ Juliana Janes to serve as SVP of TV and she will report to Gulfstream Pictures partners Mike Karz and Bill Bindley. Gulfstream has a two-year overall deal with WB. Their first project, an animated series adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ classic Green Eggs And Ham has been given a 13 episode order at Netflix.

Alissa Phillips has been tapped as the SVP at Michael DeLuca Productions. She was previously at Solipsist Films.

LeeAnne Stables has been upped from Head of Global Theatrical Productions and Studio Licensing to President of Worldwide Marketing Partnerships & Licensing at Paramount

Kori Bernards has left the SVP of Communications post at Universal Pictures to pursue other opportunities. Teri Everett has been named EVP of Global Communications, Universal Filmed Entertainment. He was previously EVP of Corporate Communications at Time.

John Friedberg has been named the President of Intl. Sales at STX. He was snagged from QED where he was an EVP of Intl. Sales.

David Lawson Jr. has been named the Head of Production at Snowfort Pictures. He was previously a Producer at Spring, Resolution. Stephanie Trepanier has been named their Director of Development. She previously founded Evokative Films.

TV

A&E has promoted Gabriel Marano to SVP Scripted Programming. In his new role Marano will handle the scripted programming team and development and current of all original scripted content and will continue to report to EVP and Head Of Programming Elaine Frontain Bryant.

Philippe Maigret has been tapped as the President, Scripted Programming at ITV Studios America. He was recently the CEO at Endemol Studios. In the newly created role, Maigret will handle ITV Studios America’s scripted portfolio.

Original Media has hired a number of new key people. Brenda Hurley has been hired as COO of both Original Media and True Entertainment both subsidiaries of Endemol Shine North America. Nikki Borrelli has been hired as SVP, production & operations, Todd Hurvitz as SVP, current programming and Lisa Bloch as VP of current programming. The company is behind Ink Master and Swamp People.

Charlie Dixon has been hired on as EVP Content for Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2. In the newly created position, he will handle all content and production on the channels and report to Jamie Horowitz, President of Fox Sports National Networks. He was recently NBC’s SVP Development.

ABC has hired Ben Gigli as their new head of Digital Development. He was previously the Manager & Creative Partners at 5-Second Films.

Dan Goodwin has been promoted from SVP to EVP of Corporate Financial Planning & Analysis at NBCUniversal.

James Stephenson has shifted from Head of Original Content at Nickelodeon Digital to SVP, Animation & Games at Nickelodeon.

Nick Mather is the new Creative Director of Endemol Shine UK’s Central Creative Team and was previously the Joint Managing Director at Remarkable TV. Jamie Ormerod is their new Head of Ent. and Formats in Central Creative Team and was previously at Remarkable TV as their Head of Ent. Development.

Chris McCarthy has shifted from GM at MTV to GM at VH1.

Elisabeth Norvik is now the Director of Development at MAK Pictures. She was previously a coordinator at TLC.

Layla Smith has been tapped as Objective Productions new CEO, shifting from John Stanley Productions where she was the Managing Director.

Peter Traugott is the new President of Scripted at Keshet Studios. He previously founded TBD Ent.

Donyell Kennedy McCullough has been hired as the Sr Director of Casting & Talent Relations at TV One. Donyell was previously a talent exec at Telepictures Prod.

Jeffrey A. Hirsch has been tapped as Starz President, Global Marketing & Product Planning. He was formerly the EVP/CMO at Time Warner. Vince Hostak has been upped from VP to SVP of Post Production at Starz.

Meredith Zamsky has been tapped as the VP of Production at TNT. She previously produced Castle and The Office. Robin Pelleck has been hired as the VP of Digital Content at TNT & TBS Original Programming. He was previously President/COO at order24 Productions. Joey Chavez has shifted from VP Drama Development at NBC to SVP of Original Programming at TNT.

Colin Davis has been upped from Kevin Reilly’s asst. to Manager of Original Programming at TBS. Thom Hinkle has been promoted from VP to SVP of Original Programming at TBS.

James Fox has been upped to Remarkable TV’s Joint Managing Director from Creative Director in London.

Gerbrig Blanksma has been named the VP of Sales at Off the Fence in Amsterdam, he was formerly their Sales Manager. Mark Dee-Shapland and Ludo Dufour have been upped from Sales Manager to VP of Sales. Georgina Eyre has left her post as Head of Acquisitions to pursue other opportunities. Bo Stehmeier has left his post as Managing Director to pursue other opportunities. Imelda Wiebers is the new Head of Distribution, upped from Manager of Legal & Business Affairs. Mette Kanne-Behrendsen is now their head of Acquisitions and was previously the Director of Pay-TV at Modern Times Group.

Rachel Kaplan is now the EVP of Scripted at Keshet Studios and was previously the partner/producer at TBD Entertainment.

Susan King has been upped from Head to Director of Production at Remarkable TV in London. Kitty Walshe is their new Joint Managing Director and hailed from TwoFour where she was head of Features & Daytime.

Tim Wastney has shifted from VP of Global Business Intelligence, BBC Advertising to VP of Ad Sales at BBC Worldwide North America. Dawn Williamson is the new SVP of Ad Sales at BBC North America. She was previously the General Sales Manager at iHeartMedia.

Olivia Wingate has been named the SVP of Scripted Development at Left/Right. He was previously a talent manager at Avalon Management.

Management, PR, Agencies

David Lillard has joined Industry Entertainment Partners as a manager. Previously he was an agent at Paradigm since 2013, and before that had been a partner at the boutique IFA Talent Agency since its inception in 1995.

Robert Klieger has shifted from Partner of Kendall Brill & Klieger to Hueston Hennigan.

Dave Santaniello has been hired as the SVP, Rights & Partnerships at United Entertainment Group. He previously ran MAP Entertainment Marketing. Mary Scott has been tapped as United Ent. Group’s new President, Sports & Brand Experiences. Melanie Washington has been hired on as the VP of Brand Experiences. She was previously Director of Brand Marketing at BMF Media. Nicole Bradley has been tapped as the VP of Communications. Robby Wells has been hired as the Chief Strategy Officer. He was formerly the VP at Carat. William Eide has been tapped as the SVP of Corporate Development. He was previously the VP of Merchant Banking at Macquarie. Gabe Banner is the new SVP of Brand Experiences at United Ent. Group. He was previously Head of Production at HUSH.

Lucas Kosoglad has been promoted from coordinator to agent of talent at Innovative Artists.

ICM has hired Hilary Baum McQuaide as an Agent, Motion Picture Production Department. She was previously a Partner at Skouras Agency. Katie Kolben has been promoted from dept. coordinator to Agent at ICM. Rebecca Ewing has been tapped as Agent, Motion Picture Literary Department at ICM. She was previously a Manager at Intellectual Artists Management. Taryn Ariel has been snagged by ICM as an Agent, she was formerly at APA.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Janet Hsu has shifted from President/COO of Sanrio to Saban Brands’ new CEO.

Susanne Daniels has left her role as Programming Chief at MTV and been named as YouTube’s VP of Original Content. She will oversee production and finding ways to bring new series to fans, reporting to Robert Kyncl, Head of Content & Business Operations.

Gerry Lopez has left his role as President, CEO at AMC Ent. Craig Ramsey who was the CFO has been named the Interim CEO.

Previous Discovery Channel President John Ford has been hired as the GM of the Nonfiction Producers Association, the nonprofit trade group launched last year to rep companies that produce documentaries and reality TV shows. Ford succeeds Rick Feldman, a former president and CEO of NATPE, who served as the NPA’s Executive Director during its 12-month launch phase.

Jordan Helman has been named the Head of Drama Development at Hulu. He was previously VP of Scripted Programming at SundanceTV. Aaron Klemanski has been named the Senior Content Development Manager. He was previously Director, Development, Timberman/Beverly Productions/

Paula Kaplan has been named the Head of Talent & Live Content at AwesomenessTV. He was previously EVP of Original Programming & Live Events at Nickelodeon.

Company Launches & Partnerships

Deadline founder and former EIC Nikki Finke has officially launched Hollywood Dementia, a website devoted to fiction showbiz stories written by industry insiders with a paywall of a $1 per story to pay contributors. Writers include lawyer Bertram Fields, David Letterman’s head writer Bill Scheft, Antonio Bogdanovich and TV and feature writers Peter Lefcourt, Cynthia Mort, Jay Abramowitz & Tom Musca.

Comedy writer-producers Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger have inked a two-year overall deal at 20th Century Fox TV Studios to develop projects with the studio and join Fox’s fall comedy Grandfathered as supervising producers. The pair first wrote on the Fox show Friends With Benefits and then worked with Grandfathered EP Dan Fogelman on ABC’s The Neighbors for two seasons.

Fusion teamed up with Surreal to produce a virtual reality episode for The Chris Gethard Show broadcast on Aug. 6. The show will be viewable with Google Cardboard available at TheChrisGethardShow.com and on YouTube.

International network Vibrant TV launched on streaming service KlowdTV. The service is available on Roku, Amazon FireTV, Sony Smart TVs, TiVo, iOS and Android devices.

NBCUniversal is in talks with BuzzFeed to invest $250 million in the publisher per Re/Code. In addition, NBCUniversal will invest in Vox Media (owner of Re/Code) to bring its value to $850 million. The deals are part of an effort to target millennial audiences.

Members of Glenn Beck’s digital network TheBlaze have launched a new media company called Red Seat Ventures. Chris Balfe, former TheBlaze CEO, Joel Cheatwood, former chief content officer of TheBlaze, Carolyn Polke, ex-COO of TheBlaze and Kevin Balfe, previous SVP of publishing at Beck’s Mercury Radio Arts were the team behind the launch. The company, whose launch partners include Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions and radio network Premiere Networks, will work to connect content creators with their consumers.

Film

John Wallace has left NBCUniversal as the President of Operations and Technical Services and is now the President and CEO over at Deluxe Ent. Services.

David Glasser has made his resignation to the board of The Weinstein Company official after seven years at the company. He will stay on to help transition a replacement.

Isaac Robert Hurwitz has been upped from Consultant to SVP of Fox Stage Productions.

JoDee Freck has left Lionsgate as their SVP of Mastering & Technical Services and is now the SVP of Home Ent. Operations at Broad Green Pictures. Tania Wood has also joined as the VP of Finance. Tania was previously the VP of Marketing and Distribution Finance at Overture Films.

TV

Lleni Sandoval has been upped from Human Resources Director to VP of Human Resources Hispanic Enterprises and Content at NBCUniversal. Ian Trombley has been upped from EVP to President Operations & Technical Services, NBCUniversal.

Lee Bartlett has left Discovery Communications’ Studio Group as President to pursue other opportunities.

Zack Beckman has left as Manager of Development at Olive Bridge Ent. to be Head of Development at Lucid Road Prod.

Kelly Goode has left her post as VP of Current Programming at ABC Family. Jennifer Gerstenblatt has been named the new VP of Current Programming, upped from Executive Director and will oversee ABCF’s current programming team, digital series and TV series Baby Daddy and the upcoming Kevin From Work. Brooke Bowman has also left her post as SVP Original Programming but will continue to consult.

Juliana Janes is the new SVP of TV at Gulfstream Pictures. She was previously a Partner/Producer at Vandalia Films.

Mina Lefevre is the new EVP and Head of Scripted at MTV, she was promoted from SVP.

Warner Bros distribution exec Dan Fellman will retire late this year after 37 years. Sue Kroll will now also be the WW distribution head in addition to WW marketing chief. Veronika Kwan Vandenberg, who previously headed overseas distribution, will now be president of WW distribution and report to Kroll.

After news that E! veteran Giuliana Rancic would be leaving her E! News anchor chair, Maria Menounos is now the one to be stepping up to the plate and will join co-anchors Jason Kennedy, Terrence Jenkins and Catt Sadler. She had been a fill-in anchor on the show for more than a year and regularly appears on E! Online’s daily roundtable series Live From E!

Tom Coan has been promoted from VP to SVP of Scripted Programming at NBCUniversal International Studios

Eric Lehrman is the new VP of Original Scripted Programming at USA Network. He was previously VP and Head of Scripted at All3Media America.

Philippe Maigret is the new President of ITV Studios America. Philippe was previously CEO of Endemol Studios.

Angela Courtin has left Relativity Media for greener pastures at Fox Broadcasting Co. to be their EVP and Chief Marketing Officer. She will handle on-air and off-air promotion and advertising, national media, multi-platform & affiliate marketing, design and social media, reporting to Joe Earley, COO, Fox Television Group, and Fox TV Group Chairmen and CEOs, Dana Walden and Gary Newman.

Gabriel Marano has been upped from VP of Drama Programming to SVP of Scripted Programming at A&E Network.

Rob O’Neill is the new SVP of Programming & Promotion Strategy, Comedy Central, up from VP.

Digital distributor Cinedigm Corp has appointed four new independent directors to its board, effective immediately. They are Zvi Rhine, Blair Westlake, Andy Schuon and Patrick O’Brien. They also named Ron Chez as special adviser. Chez spent the last six years as the Co-Chairman of Merriman Holdings, the parent company of Merriman Capital.

James Stephenson has switched from SVP of Content Development, Digital Media at Nickelodeon to SVP of Animation and Games.

Erin Wanner has been promoted from Sr. Director of Production to VP of Production at Animal Planet. Andy Weissberg has been upped from VP to SVP of Programming.

Management, PR, Agencies

David Lillard has left his post as a talent agent at Paradigm and is now a talent manager at Industry Ent. Partners.

Nicholas Mohebbi and Sara Nestor have both been upped from assistant to coordinator in the motion picture dept. at Verve.

Christy Grosz has been named LTLA Communications’ VP of Publicity. She was previously a freelance writer.

Meryl Katz and Julie Tustin have formed Film Circuits. They were both previously Consultants of Awards & Events at Paramount Pictures.

Brad S. Small has left his EVP TV Business & Legal Affairs post at The Weinstein Co. to become a Partner at Greenberg Glusker.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

U.K.-based Little Dot Studios has hired Dan Jones as its director of content, Rich Payne as its head of social and Alex Hryniewics as head of multi-platform. All three previously held positions at Maverick Television. Little Dot was founded in 2013 originally as a studio to produce YouTube content for traditional Brit broadcasters but later began creating its own channels of original content, such as Daily Mix, Tonic and Dead Parrot.

Rob Manuel as been named Editor-in-Chief at Felicia Day's Geek & Sundry. Geek & Sundry is a digital entertainment company recognized for providing the best in award-winning Internet television content featuring leading voices in geek culture and lifestyle. In Manuel's new role he will oversee all editorial content for the site. A former editor for G4’s X-play, Rob has covered game reviews and worked as a features editor. During his time at Gamestrailers, Rob produced original content for both the website and YouTube channel.

Ivana Kirkbride has left YouTube Originals as their head of Unscripted and become Vessel’s VP of Content Acquisition.

Shiv Bhaduri, former GM of media at mobile marketing and strategy company Weve, has been named the chief product officer at U.K. multi-platform media company Rightster. He will develop product strategy and create new initiatives for Rightster, which specializes in acquiring, developing and distributing digital content and networks for niche audiences.

Nathaniel Wilson has been named executive vice president of sales and marketing at Adventr, an interactive video platform. Wilson has previously worked in sales at AOL On Network, Demand Media and Fox Digital.

Scott Foundas has left Variety as their Chief Film Critic and shifted to Amazon Studios where he will be their Senior Manager, Acquisitions & Development, Feature Films.

New York Media has hired Daniel Jasper as director of sponsorship sales and Brian Carney director of sales development. Jasper was previously with the Clio Awards, while Carney joins from Bloomberg.

Technicolor expanded the company’s Animation and Games division with the appointment of Sean Mullen as Creative Director and David Kern as Games Technical Director. Mullen was previously at Disney Interactive. David Kern was previously at Nobodinos LLC, a company he founded in 2012. In addition, the studio’s previous Creative Director Owen Hurley was promoted to Executive Director of Creative.

Company Launches & Partnerships

Millennial-focused Fusion has launched SVOD service Vessel. The service will give access to several Fusion series for three days before they’re available on other platforms, as well as a mix of short form video content.

Vice Media launched its first women’s interest site, Broadly. The channel will feature original reporting on culture, fashion, sex and politics, in video series, docs, profiles and daily features. Sample programming: Style and Error, Ovary Action and a marijuana column.

Jeff Kwatinetz is resurrecting The Firm, the management and production company he shuttered after his departure as CEO. After first leaving The Firm, he launched Prospect Park with Richard Frank. The management operations of Prospect Park will now shift over to The Firm. All existing television projects will remain under Prospect Park including Royal Pains and Salem. The Firm’s relaunch will be based in Santa Monica and focus on music, film and television, and sports.

Ovation and crowd-funding site RocketHub will launch Creative Studio in the fall, a joint initiative designed to assist artists in their creative projects. The service will provide pre-launch tips and training, marketing support, on-air promotion on Ovation TV, social media marketing and support throughout fund-raising campaigns.

Film

Cinedigm named Blair Westlake, Andy Schuon, Zvi Rhine and Patrick O’Brien to its Board of Directors. In addition, they appointed Ron Chez as Strategic Advisor. Chez spent the last six years as the Co-Chairman of Merriman Holdings.

Kelly Summers is now the SVP of Strategy & Planning at Alchemy. She previously founded Bella Rafe Media.

Michael Winton is the new VP of Marketing at Cohen Media Group. He was previously the Director of Genre Marketing at IFC Films/IFC Midnight.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Cheryl Boone Isaacs ran unopposed in the 2015 Board of Governors elections and will serve a third term. AMPAS presidents can serve four one-year terms. Jeffrey Kurland was name First VP; incumbents John Bailey and Kathleen Kennedy were elected to VP posts, incumbent Bill Kroyer was elected Secretary, Jim Gianopulos was elected Treasurer and Phil Robinson was elected Secretary.

Tom Rothman has made some changes to his staff at Columbia Pictures. He has eliminated the President of Production position and has named Palak Patel and David Beaubaire as EVPs, and Hannah Minghella has shifted to become President of TriStar Pictures. Minghella will take The Rosie Project, which has Jennifer Lawrence attached to star along with her to TriStar.

Dene Stratton has left MGM as their CFO and is pursuing other opportunities. Kenneth J. Kay has been appointed the new CFO at MGM. He previously co-founded Raven at LLC.

Justin Lam is the new VP at Hutch Parker Entertainment. He was previously a Creative Executive at New Regency Productions

After the announcement of David Glasser and now Tom Quinn and Jason Janego’s exit, The Weinstein Company has promoted several executives. Francois Martin will be promoted to President of Strategic Global Marketing. Ryan Brasno will handle creative advertising under distribution president Erik Lomas. Jamie Schwartz will be the new head of international marketing. Robert Walak has been upped to head of TV and global acquisitions and Dan Guando will become head of American productions and acquisitions from New York. Meanwhile, Negeen Yazdi has been named head of overseas acquisitions and productions from the London office.

TV

20-year veteran of Discovery Communications, Marjorie Kaplan will become the President of Content at Discovery Networks International, in a newly created post. She will be responsible for strategy, coordination, and execution of all the division’s content and brand strategies across the entire portfolio, and on all platforms worldwide.

Turner has promoted Justin Williams, naming him senior vice president of digital ventures for TNT and TBS. Williams has been with the networks since 2013.

Kimberly Roberto is now a Creative Executive of Live Action and Creative Affairs at DC Entertainment. Up from her position as a coordinator at the CW in the current programming department.

Ed Sayer has been named the VP of Production and Development at Discovery Networks International. He was formerly the VP of Commissioning at NatGeo.

Steve Burns is exiting Tribune Media in his post as CFO. Former CFO Chandler Bigelow, who’s been named the Chief Strategies & Operations Officer, will take over until a replacement can be found.

Karey Burke, ABC Family’s EVP Programming and Development, has named Simran S. Sethi as SVP, Original Programming and Development. She was previously senior vice president of comedy development at NBC. Simran replaces Brooke Bowman, who is shifting from her SVP post to a consulting role. Sethi will oversee ABC Family’s scripted series development team and will have creative oversight over scripted pilots. In addition, she will develop short form scripted shows for the network’s digital platform. The network has also made two other hires, naming George Chen VP of strategy and business development and Karissa Zigarovich director of consumer insights.

Rich Magallanes is the new SVP of Development & Production at Saban Brands. He was previously the SVP of Current Series & Production at Nickelodeon.

Erin Mechanic is now a Development Producer at Spike TV and was previously the Manager of Development at Ardaban.

Alex Berkett is now the SVP of Corporate Development at Viacom. He previously co-founded Townsquare Media where he was also the EVP.

Bob Cook, who spent 2000-10 heading Twentieth Television, is set as VP and General Manager of KTTV and KCOP. to head Fox’s O&O duopoly is Los Angeles. He has been hired as, taking up the post this month. Prior, he launched MBN Inc., an entertainment and consulting business and also was the EVP of CBS Enterprises and SVP at Sony’s Columbia TriStar Television.

Tanya Haider is the new EVP of Strategy Research & Ventures at Sesame Workshop. She was formerly Head of Global Licensing & Video Content Partnerships at ZeptoLab. Diana Lee has been named the EVP of HR at Sesame Workshop and was recruited from Al Jazeera America where she was also the EVP of HR.

Mike Stein has been upped from coordinator to director of development at Davis Entertainment.

Jill Underhill is the new SVP of On-Air Promotions at Crown Media Family Networks. She was previously the Creative Director at Buzz Creative which she also owned.

Management, PR, Agencies

Morris Bentata is now a Consultant for Keystone Law. Morris was previously a Partner at Sheridans.

Clayton Friedman is now a Partner at Sidley Austin. He was previously a Partner at Manatt at Phelps & Phillips LLP. Chad Hummel is now a Partner at Sidley Austin. He was formerly a Partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

Abbie Harrison is now the Account Supervisor at DKC. Abbie was previously the Account Director at FerenComm.

Nannette LaFond-Dufour has been upped to chief client officer at McCann Worldgroup after previously serving as president of McCann Beauty Team. She was formerly the global business director at DDB Worldwide.

Communications and media agency Crossmedia has named Aaron Lewis CFO, a new position. Lewis was most recently global client finance director at Red Fuse.

Jaime Kelsall is now the VP of the Concerts Division at APA. Jaime was formerly an agent of music at the agency.

Brad Mendelsohn has been upped from Head of Lit to Partner and Head of Literary at Circle of Confusion.

Kobe Swanson is now the Sr. Unit Publicist at Crazy Talk. He was formerly the Sr. Manager of PR at The Chamber Group.

IPG Mediabrands has appointed John Sintras president of global development and product innovation, working in the agency network’s New York office. Sintras had previously been chairman at Starcom Mediavest Group.

Mira Yong has switched from Agent of Production & Literary at Gersh to Agent of Production & Motion Picture Literary at WME.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Independent marketing agency Giant Spoon appointed Veronica Brothwell as Senior Strategist. Prior she served as Brand and Creative Strategist at VITRO.

Huffington Post CEO Jimmy Maymann will now head AOL’s consumer brands and help launch Verizon’s upcoming SVOD service. Bob Lord, President of AOL, will have oversight of business-to-business, and Bill Pence, CTO, will head cutting edge tech investments in a new division dubbed Area 51.

Rod Phillips has been named head of iHeartCountry, a new country music-focused arm of radio company iHeartMedia. Phillips was previously iHeartMedia’s SVP of programming for the Southeast region.

Hearst Magazines has promoted Cosmopolitan’s Sarah Conly, naming her fashion market director at the magazine. Conly had been senior market editor.

The Huffington Post name a new CEO after it shifted CEO Jimmy Maymann to AOL’s consumer brands and to Verizon’s SVOD service. Jared Grusd will head the online news site. Grusd was most recently global head of corporate development and general counsel at Spotify.

Darren Seidel is the new EVP and CFO at Entertainment Partners. He was previously SVP of International Finance at Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.

Jay Frank is now the SVP of Global Streaming Marketing of Universal Music Group. He previously founded DigSin and DigMark. Tremor Video named John Rego as their Chief Financial Officer. Previously he was the CFO of Virgin Galactic, and previously the Executive Vice President and CFO of Vonage Holdings Corp.

Steve Auer has been promoted from Manager to VP of Studio Operations at The Culver Studios. Jim Bass has also been promoted there from Director of Finance to VP. Likewise Abigail Zellmer has been upped from Director of Studio Relations & Business Development to VP of Sales & Marketing.

Programmatic advertising company RadiumOne has promoted Anna Baird to president, Dimitri Vaynblat to chief technology and data officer, Mike Werner to EVP of North American sales and Dave Zinman  to COO. Baird had been chief financial officer and she’ll retain that position, while Vaynblat was SVP of data, optimization and product strategy. Werner was North America sales leader and Zinman chief product officer.

Company Launches & Partnerships

Jeff Kirschenbaum has partnered with Joe Roth to form Roth Kirschenbaum Films, a new production company. He was previously the Co-President of Production at Universal where he was at the studio for 15 years.

Google is now under the over-arching company Alphabet in a major reconstruction. As part of the shift, Google Co-Founder Larry Page will be Alphabet’s new CEO, and Sundar Pichai (formerly the SVP of Products for Google) will be the new CEO of Google. Co-Founder of Google, Sergrey Brin has been named the President of Alphabet. Eric Schmidt will be the Executive Chairman of Alphabet. In a letter from Brin, he explained, “Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products contained in Alphabet instead.”

Film

Ryan Brasno is the new SVP of Creative Advertising/Marketing, The Weinstein Company. He was previously the VP of Marketing at The Weinstein Company. Francois Martin has been named the President of Strategic Global Marketing, The Weinstein Company. Francois was upped from EVP of Marketing Operations & TV Sales.

Co-Presidents Jason Janego and Tom Quinn have left Radius-TWC to form a new, as yet untitled company.

James F. Lopez has been named the Head of Motion Pictures at Will Packer Productions. He was previously the SVP of Production at Screen Gems.

Elizabeth Banks and Max Handelman’s Brownstone Productions have tapped Alison Small and Renate Radford as SVPs of Film and Television, respectively. Small will head Brownstone’s film unit, which is based at Universal, where Brownstone has a first-look film production deal. Small previously was VP Production at Paramount Pictures and Paramount Insurge. Radford was formerly at Jason Winer’s Small Dog Picture Company at Fox, where she served as Head of Development.

Palak Patel is now the EVP of Production at Columbia Pictures. Palak was previously the President of Production at Roth Films.

Shelly Strong has been upped from SVP to EVP of Physical Production, DreamWorks Studios.

TV

In a major strategic realignment, Discovery Channel chief Rich Ross was just named Group President for channels that will also include Animal Planet and Science Channel. Rita Mullin will still head the Science Channel, but report to Ross, as will Animal Planet GM Rick Holzman. TLC General Manager Nancy Daniels will also run Discovery Life Channel. Howard Lee will be General Manager of Discovery Life, reporting to Daniels. Henry Schleiff will continue to be a Group President and lead Investigation Discovery, American Heroes Channel and Destination America. Discovery Life Channel GM Jane Latman is now the GM of AHC and the SVP Development for ID. Velocity’s Bob Scanlon is now GM of Velocity and Automotive Content. Carolina Lightcap, the head of content for Discovery Latin America and U.S. Hispanic Group, will now lead global family brands and kids content.

Stephanie Swedlove is now the Director of TV at Miramax, upped from a Creative Executive of TV.

Becca Tesarfreund has been upped from Manager to Director of Development at Scripted TV at Entertainment One TV.

Denielle Webb is now the VP of Public Relations and Marketing at SundanceTV. She was previously a Marketing and PR Consultant for AMC.

Global Television and Event production company Done + Dusted has promoted partner, Melanie Fletcher, to Chief Operating Officer. As part of her new position, Fletcher will relocate from the Done and Dusted Group UK hub to its US headquarters in Los Angeles. Fletcher’s new role will include facilitating growth and strategy initiatives, managing all internal and external communications, providing international oversight of productions and developing the new branded content arm, Blue Revolver.

George Chen is now the VP of Strategy & Business Development, ABC Family. He was previously the Director of Business Development. Karissa Zigarovich is now the Director of Consumer Insights at ABC Family. She was formerly the Director of Marketing & Programming Insights at MTV.

Margaret M. Dean is now the General Manager of Stoopid Buddy Stoodios. She was previously the Director of Production at Playground Productions.

Ethan Goldman has been promoted from EVP of Development to Partner and Head of Development at Warrior Poets.

OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network has upped Jill Dickerson from VP to SVP programming and development. In her new post she will continue to collaborate with producers in the development of nonfiction programming for OWN, as well as supervise editorial management of outside production.

Dave Hamilton is the new EVP of Development at Cineflix Media. He was formerly the SVP of Leopard USA.

Greg Lipstone is now the CEO of All3Media America. He was the Founding Partner and Head of International Television & Media, ICM Partners.

Brenda Lowry is now the VP, Network Program Publicity, Crown Media Family Networks. She was formerly the Director of Communications at SyFy.

Tom Rogan is exiting Authentic Entertainment after 15 years, the reality/documentary production company he co-founded with Lauren Lexton. Lexton has renewed her contract and will remain as CEO.

JP Bommel is now the Managing Director and COO of NATPE//Content First. JP was previously the VP of Business Development, Entertainment at Reed Midem.

Tony Optican is now the Head of Programming at Media General. He was formerly the SVP and Head of Scripted Programming at FremantleMedia North America.

Patrick Reardon has been upped from SVP to EVP of TV at The Weinstein Company.

Lauren Ruggiero is now the Sr. Director of Scripted Development at Spike TV. Lauren was formerly a Production Executive at Elice Island Entertainment.

Jeffrey Schneider is now the EVP of Business & Legal Affairs, National Geographic Channels. He was previously the EVP of Business Affairs and General Counsel, Shine America.

Kay Wilson Stallings has shifted from SVP at Nickelodeon to SVP of Content Development, Sesame Workshop.

Management, PR, Agencies

With the news that Jeff Kwatinetz has brought back the management and production company, The Firm there have been some personnel announcements. Josh Barry will be a Partner of The Firm and Prospect Park. Angelica Cob-Baehler will shift over to The Firm as an Artists Manager. Jeremy Summers is now the General Manager of The Firm.

Kevin McLean is now the Director of Touchwood PR. He was previously the President of District PR. Kara MacLean is now a manager at Touchwood. She was previously a freelance publicist.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Georg Ramme will now be the global managing director for MCN Endemol Beyond and responsible for worldwide strategy, overseeing the growth of the network’s business as a global producer and distributor of digital video and branded content. He will also continue in his role as managing director of Endemol’s German digital hub.

MultiView appointed Yariv Drori as the new VP of Programmatic Advertising Operations. Drori was formerly the VP of Global Services at Adap.tv, which was recently acquired by One by AOL.

Entertainment market research firm Screen Engine/ASI opened two new divisions at the company with new hires. David Gross joined as SVP, overseeing the International Division, and Mark Orne will lead the Digital Entertainment Division as SVP.

The Atlantic has made a pair of additions, naming Ross Andersen senior editor and Catherine Green senior associate editor. Andersen joins from Aeon Magazine, Green from Voice of San Diego.

Beth Braen, SVP of marketing at NATPE, is leaving the organization to start a strategic marketing and communications consultancy.

Yahoo Media has named Martha Nelson as their EIC. Most recently, Nelson was the first female editor-in-chief of Time Inc., where she oversaw the editorial content for the media company’s 21 brands.

Communications planning and media services agency Crossmedia has tapped David Heimlich as Executive Director. Previously he spent four years at Horizon Media, where he most recently was VP, Managing Director.

Melody Hammer is the new VP of Lifestyle, Collective Digital Studio. She was previously the CCO of Seventeen Magazine’s YouTube Channel.

Ken Parks is now the Executive Chairman, Pluto TV. He was previously the CCO of Spotify.

Julie Rapaport is now the Development & Production Executive, Amazon Original Movies. She was previously the SVP of Production & Development, The Weinstein Company.

Univision Communications has tapped Laraine (Rainey) Mancini as SVP, Finance – Head of Investor Relations. Mancini was previously Vice President, Corporate Strategy + Business Development and Vice President, Investor Relations at Time Warner Cable.

Company Launches & Partnerships

Amazon has struck an exclusive deal with Open Road Films to stream their titles via Amazon Prime starting in 2017. Films will include upcoming 2016 releases like Fifty Shades Of Black, action-thriller Triple 9, romantic comedy Mother’s Day, action-thriller Sleepless Night, Bleed For This, and the animated family film Blazing Samurai.

Major League Baseball is working on a deal with Fox, which holds the local media rights to 15 MLB teams, to allow authenticated local streaming of live games. Currently only the Toronto Blue Jays, currently streams games locally. In the past, the league has required streamed games should go through MLB.com. The league will charge each sports network a rights fee in the mid- to high seven figures.

Endemol Beyond USA, the digital entertainment division of Endemol Shine North America, will join subscription video platform Vessel with over 700 of its existing videos and an exclusive early access window for new programming. Created by Dutch media giant Endemol to manage its growing roster of partnerships with digital content creators in North America, Endemol Beyond will bring to Vessel content from YouTubers including Michelle Phan and original video from Pitbull, Jessica Sanchez, Brittany Furlan, Drea de Matteo and Andy Milonakis.

Film

Ted Cooper is retiring from his position as head film buyer for Regal Ent. Group. He’ll consult for the company for a year. Replacing him is Mike Viane, the former Warner Bros distribution exec.

Bob Bacon has left Paramount Pictures as their EVP of Animation and is currently pursuing other opportunities.

Andrew Calof is now the VP of Production at Dreamworks Studios. He previously held the same title at New Regency.

Mark Zoradi has been tapped as the CEO of Cinemark following Tim Warner’s leave after 20 years at the company. Warner will continue to provide consulting services. Zoradi was previously the COO of Dreamworks Animation.

Penney Finkelman Cox and Sandra Rabins are now the Co-Presidents of Original Force Animation. They were previously SVPs at Sony Pictures Animation.

Amy Dunning is now the Head of Music in Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group. She was formerly the SVP of Downtown Music Publishing.

Allison Gillogly has been upped from CE to Director of Development at Ridley Scott Films.

Jenn Sheridan is now the VP of Creatives Services in Broad Green Pictures’ Home Entertainment division. She was previously the SVP of Creative Services at Trailer Park.

TV

Marie Moore has joined Turner Broadcasting System as VP of communications for TBS and TNT. Moore will work with Petruzzi to lead the communications strategy for original programming and new ventures in digital content, as well as TBS’s upcoming brand overhaul. She was formerly an executive at IFC, leading consumer media relations, program publicity and talent relations.

Matt Cafritz is now a Manager of Development at Warrior Poets. He was previously an AP at Original Media. Eric Enright has been promoted from AP to CE.

Lee Flaster has shifted from SVP of Planning, Strategy & Business Operations, NBCUniversal Hispanic Group to SVP of Business Operations & Growth Strategy, Telemundo.

Dolores Gavin has shifted from EVP of Development & Production, Discovery Channel to EVP of Development at Megalomedia.

Duncan Gray is now a Principal of Twenty Six 03. He was previously the Creative Director of Princess Productions.

John Hamlin is now a Principal of Switched On Entertainment. He was formerly the SVP of Music Events and Talent for CMT.

Brooke Johnson will retire in 2016 from her post as President of Food Network and Cooking Channel and will remain on for a time as a Consultant to the Scripps Networks Interactive.

Erika Kennair is now the VP of Comedy Development & International Scripted Development, ABC Entertainment. She was formerly the VP of Original Programming & Development, Syfy.

Marc Rosen has decided to leave his post as CEO of Georgeville TV, which he launched with Reliance’s Motion Picture Capital in 2012. The company was attached as a producer-financier to series including NBC’s Crossbones and Relativity TV’s Limitless series. Currently Georgeville TV produces the Wachowski drama Sense8 on Netflix.

Simon Knight is now the CEO of Maverick TV. He was formerly the Creative Director of Ricochet.

Patrick Kondelis has been upped from Senior Producer at Bat Bridge Ent. from Creative Director of Unscripted.

Ross McCarthy is now the Managing Director, Gobstopper Television. He was formerly Head of Unscripted at Buccaneer Media.

Nikki Suseck has been upped from Publicity Assistant, Discovery Communications to Publicist at HGTV.

Time Warner has upped Priya Dogra, naming her SVP of mergers and acquisitions. Dogra has been at Time Warner since 2009, and before that she was at Citibank.

Dustin Smith has shifted from VP of Communications at TLC to the same title at CBS.

Sabina Widmann-Hernandez is now the VP and General Manager and Director, Sales, Univision Local Media. Sabina was previously Director of Sales at Univision Local Media.

Stephanie Yates is now the VP of Research & Insights, WE tv. She was formerly the VP of Research at TV One.

Management, PR, Agencies

Jonathan Perelman is now ICM’s Head of Digital Ventures. He was previously VP of Motion Pictures at Buzzfeed. Perelman will focus on expanding the agency’s representation of digital content creators and report to founding partner Chris Silbermann. Keyvan Peymani is now a Senior Advisor of Digital Ventures at ICM, up from Managing Director. Bennett Sherman has been upped from Coordinator to Agent in Digital Ventures.

Sean Lyons has returned to the R/GA agency as President, after previously serving as SVP of operations and business planning. Lyons was formerly global chief digital officer at Havas.

Aimée Anderson is now the Managing Director along with her past title of VP of Brand Publicity for DDA PR in London. Neil Bhatt is now President of Film and TV at DDA. He was previously Head of UK Theatrical PR at StudioCanal. Ben Hayes is now DDA’s Chief Innovation Officer. He was formerly their head of digital.

Tanya Cohen has switched as an agent of Motion Picture Literary at Verve to WME.

Marko Kuo is now an Attorney at Kleinberg Lange Cuddy & Carlo. Marko was previously a Counsel at Fayer Gipson.

Sarah Ledesma is now the Manager of Social Media at Haley Miranda Group. She was formerly a coordinator at AFI. Ashton Spatz is now the Director of Social Media & Public Relations, Haley Miranda Group. Ashton was previously the Senior Manager of Marketing & Promotions, House of Blues Entertainment and Live Nation. Maggie Waters is now a Sr. Manager of PR for Haley Miranda Group. She was formerly the Director of PR at Tina Thomson Communications.

Craig Bernstein is shifting from ICM Partners to UTA. He is a below-the-line agent with clients that include Theory of Everything Oscar-winning scribe Anthony McCarten and producer Lisa Bruce.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

David Miller has been upped from VP to SVP of Brand Marketing at Universal Studios Hollywood. Xiomara Wiley is now the EVP of Marketing and Sales, she was previously the SVP. Wiley will handle brand direction for the park and CityWalk, including strategy & insight, integrated marketing, sales, publicity and more.

Ian Richter is now the EVP of Franchise & Emerging Platform Development at Legendary Entertainment. He was previously head of Franchise Creative at DreamWorks Animation.

Kate Bedingfield has been tapped as Vice President Joe Biden’s Communications Director. She was previously the Chief Spokesperson for the MPAA. She joined the MPAA in 2011 from the White House, where she was associate communications director and acting director of media affairs. She has also formerly overseen campaign communications in 2008 for presidential candidate John Edwards and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). She takes over for Shailagh Murray, who’s now a Senior Advisor to President Obama.

Online publisher Evolve Media has tapped Jennifer Catto SVP of integrated marketing, based in the company’s New York office. Catto was formerly VP and head of branded entertainment and partnerships at Say Media.

Ranker, an online site for crowdsourced rankings, has tapped Inger Lund Carter as VP of content and programming and David Cohn EVP of sales. Carter comes from Yahoo, Cohn from Askmen and CraveOnline.

Patrick J. Connors has switched magazines from Time Inc. to InStyle where he will be the publisher. Connors had been SVP and publisher at Men’s Fitness.

Time Inc. has named Nicholas Butterworth head of product for digital entertainment, and will work with People.com and EW.com. Butterworth is a former CEO at MTV Interactive Group.

Will Keenan, who had served as President of Endemol Beyond USA, is leaving after two years. Adrian Sexton has been named Interim President and COO for Endemol Beyond USA, Endemol Shine North America’s premium content network. Leslie Morgan, who leads all lifestyle programming, has been named VP, Programming for Endemol Beyond USA.

Yahoo Media has a new Editor-in-Chief: Martha Nelson. Most recently, Nelson was the first female editor-in-chief of Time Inc., where she oversaw the editorial content for the media company’s 21 brands.

Communications planning and media services agency Crossmedia tapped David Heimlich as Executive Director. He joins the agency after four years at Horizon Media where he was VP and Managing Director.

MultiView tapped Yariv Drori as the new VP of Programmatic Advertising Operations. Drori was formerly the Vice President of Global Services at Adap.tv, which was recently acquired by One by AOL.

Company Launches & Partnerships

China-based YooZoo Pictures has joined Bliss Media to form a $100 million equity YooZoo Bliss Film Fund for use on Chinese co-productions and films designed for worldwide distribution. The fund’s managing directors are the LA-based co-founder and President of Bliss Meida Wei Han and CEO of YooZoo Pictures U.S. Lin Qi. CAA advised on the fund and will continue to represent it. YooZoo Pictures recently aquired the Chinese distribution rights to the IM Global feature, Hacksaw Ridge.

Indie producer-distributor Entertainment Studios has inked a deal with Verizon FiOS to carry its Justice Central.TV, a 24/7 legal and news cable network. This is the first major new carriage deal for the network, which began in 2012 on AT&T U-Verse. Justice Central.TV’s lineup includes Justice With Judge Mablean and America’s Court With Judge Ross.

Hyper, a new app with curated, short-form videos, has launched. The videos encompass tech, culture, style, and events around the world. Hyper was created with the assistance of a $1.1 million dollar seed round led by Advancit Capital, with participation by Lowercase Capital, Broadway Video Ventures, Freelance Ventures, and Mesa Ventures.

New Zealand-based Vista Entertainment Solutions, a global leader in cinema-management software, has joined forces with software provider VINX Corporation to enter the Japanese marketplace.

Channel Frederator Network has debuted 90+ new channels featuring content creators from 11 different countries to its digital animation network in the last month. It now has more than 27 million subscribers and 2.6 billion views of its content.

Film

Jeff Baker has been named the Creative Consultant of RatPac Entertainment. He was formerly the EVP and General Manager of Theatrical Catalog at Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.

Scott Coulter has been named the VP, Executive Producer of Visual Effects at MASTERSFX. He was formerly the Founder of VFX Executive Producer at Worldwide FX.

Tomas Jegeus has been named the President of Fox International Productions. He was formerly the Co-President of Worldwide Theatrical Marketing & Distribution at 20th Century Fox.

Elisabeth Costa de Beauregard Rose is now a Consultant at AMBI Distribution. She was previously the President of International Sales & Distribution at Voltage Pictures

Paul Hanson has been named the CEO of Covert Media. He was formerly the Chief Operating Officer of Annapurna Pictures.

Elisabeth Patte has been named the Director of Animated Custom Creative Content at Illumination Entertainment. She was previously the Director of Background Characters of Minions

Laura Sok is now the VP of Publicity at Cohen Media Group. She was previously an independent film publicity consultant in the Netherlands.

TV

Lynn Stepanian has been named the EVP of TV at Open Road Films. She will handle acquisitions and managing output deals and develop programming opportunities and TV series based on Open Road’s film library. Most recently she was the SVP Acquisitions and Scheduling at ABC Family where she oversaw the network’s off-network and feature acquisitions and linear, multi-platform and on-air media strategies.

Philip Matthys has joined Hulu as head of head business affairs for its original series. In his new role, he will handle biz affairs for all development and production deals related to Hulu Originals, including managing the business relationships with studio suppliers. He will report to Chadwick Ho, SVP & General Counsel at Hulu. Previously he spent 12 years at NBCU, most recently as SVP, Head of Business Affairs, at USA Network, Syfy Channel and Universal Cable Productions.

Gina Becconsall has been given the position of VP, Post-Production & Operations at 44 Blue Productions. She was previously the Director, Post-Production & Operations at 44 Blue Productions. PJ Donnelly has been named the VP, Post-Production & Technical Services. PJ was upped from Director, Post-Production & Technical Services at 44 Blue Productions. Mark Hamaguchi is now the VP, Production Management at 44 Blue. He was formerly the Director, Production Management at the company.

Nicholas Caprio has been upped to COO at Pilgrim Studios. He was formerly the EVP of Production & Current Programming at Pilgrim Studios. Johnny Gould has been named the Chief Creative Officer at the company. He was formerly the EVP, Development & Original Programming.

Eric Coleman has been promoted to the position of SVP, Original Programming and General Manager at Disney Television Animation. He was formerly the SVP of Original Series at Disney Television Animation. Aaron Simpson has been named the VP of Development at Disney Television Animation. He was formerly the Head of Development at Mondo Media. Jonathan Schneider has been named the VP of Strategy at Disney Television Animation. He was promoted from his title as Executive Director, Development at Disney Television Animation. Shane Prigmore has been named the VP, Creative Affairs at Disney Television Animation. Previously Shane was the Co-EP and Creative Director on their animated film, Tangled. Bonnie Lemon has been given the position of VP of Production at Disney Television Animation. She was formerly a Production Executive at DreamWorks Animation.

Lauren Eskelin has been given the position of EVP, Programming at True Entertainment. She was formerly the SVP, Programming at the company. Lorraine Haughton has been named the VP, Programming, True Entertainment and will stay on as EP of The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Carol Klein has been named the VP, Production at True Entertainment. He was formerly the Executive in Charge of Production at Love, Lust, Or Run.

Kathleen Finch has been given the position of Chief Programming, Content & Brand Officer at Scripps Networks Interactive. She was formerly the President of HGTV, DIY Network and Great American Country. Burton Jablin has been named the Chief Operating Officer at Scripps Networks Interactive. He was formerly the President at Scripps Networks. Shannon O’Neill has been named the Managing Director, Finance & Operations at Scripps Networks Interactive. She was previously the President at Travel Channel.

Randy Lennox has been given the position of President, Entertainment Production & Broadcasting at Bell Media. He was formerly the President, CEO at Universal Music Canada.

Leonardo Ruiz has been given the position of VP, General Manager and Director, Sales at Univision Local Media (Salt Lake City) and General Manager at Univision Local Media (Bakersfield, CA). He was formerly the General Manager at Univision Local Media (Bakersfield, CA).

Jon Rutherford is now pursuing other opportunities. He was formerly the EVP of Distribution & Business Development at Tricon Films & Television. Karthiga Ratnasabapathy has been named the VP, Worldwide Sales & Acquisitions, Tricon Films & Television. She was previously the Director, Digital Sales & Acquisitions at Tricon Films & Television.

Francois Vallerian is now the Director of International Free TV Research at 20th Century Fox Television Distribution. He was formerly the VP of Market Research at Zodiak USA.

Management, PR, Agencies

David Gardner has gone over to The Lippin Group and will serve as their SVP. the firm’s chairman and CEO Dick Lippin announced today. Gardner is a veteran, with 20 years in L.A. and Atlanta working on public relations and publicity campaigns for more than 100 TV series, movies, specials and events.

Neil Warnock has been named the Head of Worldwide Music at UTA. He previously founded and was the President of The Agency Group that UTA recently acquired. Craig Bernstein has been named an Agent, Production at UTA. He was formerly an Agent in the Production department at ICM Partners.

Annie McDonough has been named the VP of Falco Ink. She was previously a Senior Account Executive at Falco Ink.

Gavin O’Reilly is now pursuing other opportunities after leaving his post as CEO of The Agency Group.

Tara Senior has been given the position of Co-Head of Unscripted Television at Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein & Lezcano. She was previously a Partner at Hansen Jacobson.

Steven Squillante has been named the Chief Operating Officer at Partner at Leeding Management. He was formerly the President of Physical Production at IM Global.

Grant Derkac has been named the Agent of International & Independent Film at ICM Partners. He was formerly a Coordinator of International & Independent Film at ICM Partners.

David Gross has been hired on as the SVP of International Division at Screen Engine/ASI. He previously founded Movie Review Intelligence. Mark Orne has been named the SVP of Digital Entertainment Division at Screen Engine/ASI. He was formerly the Executive Director of Global Consumer Insights Group at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Erica Lancaster is now a TV Agent at CAA. She was previously a Development Executive at Broadway Video.

Pattie Sueoka has moved to The Gersh Agency and will be an agent in their commercial production division, supporting below-the-line talent for spots, music videos and branded content. Gersh has also brought on Tara Kromer to oversee below-the-line talent for features and television in the New York office.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Anki named Mark Bradley as its Chief Revenue Officer. Bradley was formerly VP for Asia Pacific with Electronic Arts.

Rick Schiavinato has been named the VP of Sales and Business Development for ThinkAnalytics Latin America. He most recently worked in business development for Genesis Networks.

Endemol Shine Group has hired on Wim Ponnet as Group Director of Strategy + Commercial Development. Ponnet was previously at Yahoo EMEA, where he was the Senior Director, Strategy + Operations since 2011.

Ranker has just launched a video division and hired Inger Lund Carter as the VP, Content and Programming. Carter was previously the Yahoo! Front Page Editorial Director. Over in their advertising division, Ranker has hired David Cohn, formerly of Askmen and Crave Online.com, as the EVP of Sales.

Brad Globe, President of Warner Bros. Consumer Products, will be leaving the studio after running the division for more than a decade. Diane Nelson will take over the division until she names Globe’s successor, adding it to her current responsibilities as President, DC Entertainment and President and CCO at Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

Erin McPherson was previously the CCO at Maker Studios, but has since left to pursue other opportunities. Jeremy Welt has also left his post as SVP of Marketing at Maker to pursue other opportunities.

Adrian Sexton has been hired as the Interim President of Endemol Beyond USA. He was previously the COO at Endemol Beyond USA. Will Keenan was formerly the President but has since left to pursue other opportunities.

Jeffrey Remedios has been named the President and CEO of Universal Music Canada. He was formerly the Co-Founder of Arts & Crafts.

Matt Wise has been given the position of Director of Publishing at Blumhouse Books. He was previously an Agent, Literary at Foundry Literary + Media.

Company Launches & Partnerships

Production company Citizen Skull Productions has started CSP Management, a management division representing actors, writers, DPs, directors and social media influencers. CSP Management’s goal is to broaden influencers’ digital profiles and assist them cross platforms into film and television. Clients include Sienna Spalding, Nessa Varez and Lynette Cenee.

Time Inc. has launched The Foundry, a new collective that joins editorial and branded content creators under a single group. The Foundry’s first new vertical will be the automotive-centric The Drive, to launch in September. The group will be lead by Mark Ford, Time Inc.’s EVP of Global Advertising Sales.

Swedish media company Modern Times Group has acquired Turtle Entertainment, an e-sports firm based in Germany that hosts numerous gaming leagues in tournaments.

Multi-platform video services provider Vubiquity has acquired Juice Worldwide, an encoding house and digital distributor, out of Toronto. As Juice has preferred vendor status with iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, and Google Play, and other major digital and OTT providers, the deal will give Vubiquity’s media partners to distribute content to all of them. Juice Worldwide will keep its name and retain its CEO, Andrew Buck.

Film

Broad Green Pictures has tapped Alix Madigan to be their head of creative affairs. She previously worked as a staff producer at Anonymous Content, and also had stints at Propaganda Films, Skouras Pictures and Avenue Entertainment. She also currently serves on the board of Film Independent.

Michael Francis will be leaving his post as the Chief Global Brand Officer of DreamWorks Animation, but will remain on as a Consultant.

Jonathan S. Headley has been upped to SVP, Treasurer of The Walt Disney Company. He was previously the SVP, Corporate Finance and Assistant Treasurer.

Anikah McLaren is now the SVP of Production at Fox Searchlight Pictures. She was formerly the VP of Production & Development at Universal Pictures.

David Ansen has been tapped as the Lead Programmer for the Palm Springs International Film Festival. He previously spent four years as Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. In his new role he will be tasked with acquiring films for upcoming festivals from U.S.-based distribution outlets and international sales companies. He also will be on the selection committee for films submitted to the festival.

Kelli Konop is now the EVP of Physical Production at Good Universe. She was formerly the EVP of Physical Production at Mandate Pictures.

Jason Seagraves is now the VP of Production & Development at Cross Creek Pictures, he was previously a Production Executive there.

Jack Talley is now the EVP of Physical Distribution at Alchemy. He was previously the EVP at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

TV

Cara Dellaverson has been tapped by NBC Ent. as their new SVP of Drama Development to report to Pearlena Igbokwe, EVP of Drama Development. She was previously the SVP of Television Development and Current Programming at Lionsgate, where she oversaw the launch of ABC’s Nashville and Orange Is The New Black.

Authentic Entertainment has revealed its new executive team structure. Michael Bouson will now serve as their COO, promoted from Executive in Charge of Production and SVP of Production & Operations. Nneka Enurah now holds the title of Director of Digital & Communications at Authentic Entertainment. She was formerly a Manager of Development there. Paul Halperin now holds the title of SVP of Finance & Risk Management. He was previously the SVP of Business Affairs. Mark LaFleur is now a Creative Director at Authentic Entertainment. He was previously the Senior Director and DP. Doug Mirabello is now the SVP of Development, up from Director of Development. Paul O’Malley is now the VP of Development; he was previously the VP of Casting & Talent at Authentic. Will Pisnieski is now the CTO and Head of Post-Production, promoted from his title of SVP. Patrick Stringer is now the VP of Broadcast Operations, up from Director. Jeff Weaver is now the SVP of Current Programming. He was previously an Executive Producer and Showrunner for the company. Carolyn Yamazaki is now the VP of Business & Legal, she was promoted from Counsel.

Jon Adler now holds the title of Director of Development at CNN, up from Associate Director.

Kerri Clark now holds the title of VP and Assistant General Counsel at Legal & Business Affairs, Content Distribution at Turner Broadcasting System. She was formerly Senior Counsel, Content Distribution at Turner Broadcasting System.

The Jackal Group has promoted Dani Gorin to the role of Director of Development, Television, up from Manager of Development. In her new position, Gorin expands her responsibilities to strategically identify scripted television projects across cable, broadcast, comedy and drama to be developed by the company. She will also help oversee the development and production of all television projects in the company’s pipeline.

Max Kisbye has been promoted from VP to SVP of TV Production & Development at MGM Television. Lindsay Sloane is now the EVP of TV Production & Development at MGM Television. She was formerly the SVP of Head of Television at TriStar Productions. Nathan Taylor is now the Director of Development at MGM Television, up from Creative Executive. Rob Hochberg now holds the title of Creative Executive at MGM Television, up from Executive Assistant.

Cameron Larson is now the VP of Original Programming at Crown Media Family Networks. She was formerly a Writer, Producer at Aviator Entertainment.

Jennifer O’Connell is now pursuing other opportunities. She was formerly the Head of U.S. Television at CORE Media Group.

Philip Matthys has been named the Head of Business Affairs, Original Series at Hulu. He was previously the SVP and Head of Business Affairs at USA, Syfy, and Universal Cable Productions.

Entertainment One Television has upped Jeff Lynas from SVP, Operations & Business Development to Chief Operating Officer and will report directly to CEO John Morayniss. In his new role, Lynas will handle all day-to-day operations for eOne Television on a global basis and continue in his business development capacity, establishing and structuring new business relationships for eOne Television across production, distribution and digital. Polly Williams is now the Head of Drama at Entertainment One and Creative England Television Drama Venture. She was formerly a Development Director at Sally Head Productions.

Jenny Ramirez is now the SVP of Development at Irwin Entertainment. She was formerly the VP of Development & Production, CORE Media Group.

Jon Rutherford is now the President of Distribution at Temple Street Productions. He was previously the EVP of Distribution & Business Development at Tricon Films & Television.

Bryan Seabury is now the SVP of Drama Development at CBS Entertainment, up from VP.

Management, PR, Agencies

Daniel Martinez has been upped from VP to EVP of Brand & Entertainment Marketing at PMK-BNC. Joanne Melzer has been promoted from VP to SVP of Insights & Analytics at PMK-BNC.

Lori Swift is now a Manager, Talent at Sweet 180. She was formerly an Agent, Talent and Head of New York Office at Kazarian/Measures/Ruskin & Associates.

Tony Wang is now a Partner at O’Melveny & Myers. He was previously a Partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

Music, Digital, Publishing, Misc.

Michael Goldfine, CMO at YouTube MCN Fullscreen has left the company to work on future projects. Together, Polly Auritt as their new VP of Scripted Content and Katy Chen as their VP of Unscripted Development will fill that role. Auritt previously served as MTV’s VP of Scripted Series Development; Chen comes from AwesomenessTV, where she was the Director of Development.

Cynthia Rapp has been named the SVP, Global Creative, Consumer Products at 20th Century Fox. She was formerly the CMO of Stila Cosmetics.

Amol Jadhav has been named the VP of Global Expansion at The Weather Company. He was previously the Head of Global Platform at Ebates.

Funny or Die has hired Owen Burke as their Editor-in-Chief. He previously was the EP of Funny or Die-produced The Chris Gethard Show for Fusion and ran the TV department for Will Ferrell and Adam McKay‘s Gary Sanchez Productions. The company also named Chris Bruss as President of Digital Content. Bruss started with the company in 2009, serving as VP of Branded Entertainment.

Jon Carvill has been named the VP of Communications at Vevo. Prior to that, he served as VP of Corporate Communications at billion-dollar tech startup Globalfoundries.

Andrew Goldman has been named the Chief Strategy Officer at TVtibi. He was previously the VP of Programming Strategy & Planning at HBO.

Global experiential marketing and eSports agency NCompass International, has tapped Brent Koning, formerly of Microsoft, to oversee all gaming and global partnerships for NCompass and will work out of the Seattle office, headed up by SVP Ryan Fitzpatrick. They’ve also hired Aaron Miller, formerly of George P. Johnson, as VP of Innovation and will report to SVP Matt Mayer, in the Los Angeles office.

Melissa Boag has been named the SVP of Kids & Family Entertainment at Shout! Factory. She was upped from VP of Kids & Family Entertainment. Tom Chen has been named the VP of Publicity at Shout!, up from Associate VP of Publicity & Corporate Communications. Jordan Fields has likewise been promoted from Associate VP of Acquisitions to VP. David McIntosh has been upped from VP to SVP of Business Affairs & Digital Distribution.

Kate Hart has been promoted to Director of Development at Think Tank Management & Production. She was formerly one of their Creative Executives.