Warner Bros Discovery president of international Gerhard Zeiler has announced his new leadership team following a series of departures in recent weeks.
The appointments follow the exits of EMEA president Priya Dogra, head of international TV distribution Robert Blair, Germany boss Hannes Heyelmann and French general manager Pierre Branco.
Clement Schwebig, who has managed India, Southeast Asia and Korea (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.
James Gibbons, president and managing director for Australia, New Zealand and Japan, will lead a new APAC regional division that incorporates Asia Pacific, INSEAK and Western Pacific.
As previously announced, Andrew Georgiou heads the UK and Ireland in addition to leading WBD Sports Europe.
In an email to WBD staff today, Zeiler listed the rest of the international team:
- Latin America will continue to be led by Fernando Medin, while Poland will continue to be led by Kasia Kieli. Alessandro Araimo will continue to run southern Europe, which combines Italy and Iberia.
- Christina Sulebakk will continue to run the Nordic region which integrates Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
- Vanessa Brookman will continue to run WBD’s EMEA-KIDS business.
- Ronald Goes will continue to oversee 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.
- 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 unscripted use across the EMEA WBD portfolio in collaboration with Meredith Gertler’s team, will now report into Cooke.
- Ragnhild Thorbech will continue to be responsible 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.
Zeiler said: “This team has both the attitude and competence to manage the complexity of the International business and a One Team mindset to collaborate effectively with the global partners across the company.
“I am 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. 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.”
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