Thursday 5 October 2023

Deadline: Warner Bros. Discovery International Boss Gerhard Zeiler Sets New Leadership Team Following Spate Of Exits

Story from Deadline:

Warner Bros. Discovery international boss Gerhard Zeiler has set a new leadership structure for his team following a spate of exits in the past few weeks.

Zeiler sent an all-staff email out this morning in which he laid out how the team will work now that EMEA boss Priya Dogra, international distribution head Robert Blair, Germany lead Hannes Heyelmann and France chief Pierre Branco have departed. There have been no layoffs as part of the restructure, Deadline understands.

James Gibbons has been promoted from Asia Pacific, INSEAK and Western Pacific boss to run all of APAC, while Clement Schwebig, who has managed INSEAK since 2020, will now have responsibility for GSA, France, Benelux and Africa, which will be brought together into a single Western Europe & Africa market cluster under his leadership.

You can see the full structure at the bottom of this article laid out in Zeiler’s email.

Zeiler said he is “fully aware that change can be unsettling and we have had a lot of changes in these last 18 months.”

“In addition to the organisational and personnel changes, we are also experiencing a difficult macroeconomic situation in combination with an acceleration of the transformational industry trends,” he added. “This is not an easy situation for any company to manage through, including ours. But I am convinced, more than ever, that with our clearly defined strategy, the IP we have, and the content we produce along with your incredible dedication and commitment to our business, we are in the strongest position to successfully manage the changes and continue to thrive.”

The new structure in full:
Latin America will continue to be led by Fernando Medin.

The same is true for Poland, which has been and will be led by Kasia Kieli.

In Asia Pacific, INSEAK and Western Pacific will be united into a single APAC region under the leadership of James Gibbons.

Clement Schwebig, who has managed INSEAK since 2020, will now have responsibility for GSA, France, Benelux and Africa which will be brought together into a single Western Europe & Africa market cluster under his leadership.

As previously announced, Andrew Georgiou has taken up the responsibility to head our business in the UK & Ireland in addition to leading Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe, which reflects the significant synergies between TNT Sports, Discovery+ and our linear networks in the UK.

Jamie Cooke, who oversees CEE and MENAT and has responsibility for Creative and all pay-TV channels across EMEA ,will take on additional oversight of unscripted and linear content acquisition. Myriam Lopez-Otazu, who is responsible for sourcing and maximising unscripted utilization across the EMEA Warner Bros. Discovery portfolio in collaboration with Meredith Gertler’s team, will now report into Jamie.

Ragnhild Thorbech will maintain responsibility for scripted acquisitions to more fully integrate the content strategy for Max and will become part of the Global Streaming Content Leadership team. She will report to Meredith Gertler, EVP, Global Content Strategy, Planning and Analysis.

Alessandro Araimo will continue to run Southern Europe, which combines Italy and Iberia.

Christina Sulebakk will continue to run the Nordics region which integrates Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

Vanessa Brookman will continue to run our significant EMEA-KIDS business.

Ronald Goes will continue to oversee our international production unit WBITVP, which includes 21 production companies in 13 countries in EMEA and APAC.

Qaisar Rafique will continue to lead Commercial Strategy for EMEA and APAC.

Louis Goldstein will continue to lead Business Operations for International and expand his coordination responsibility for International Home Entertainment to also encompass Content Licensing.

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