Grass Valley expands GV Media Universe with addition of Barbara DeHart

In this newly created role, DeHart will focus all of Grass Valley’s strategic partnerships on bringing together high-performance solutions from recognised broadcast technology vendors into a unified cloud-native ecosystem.

GV Media Universe is Grass Valley’s vision for transitioning to the software- and cloud-based future of content creation and distribution in a safe, efficient, proven ecosystem of new operations and business practices. Strategic partners in the GV Media Universe are said to enjoy a faster pathway to the cloud and an established operational and commercial ecosystem that extends their reach and sales potential.

Grass Valley customers benefit from these partnerships through access to industry-leading solutions on a seamlessly integrated production platform, providing them with the power to create more flexible, scalable and agile workflows. Customers can focus their resources on content creation rather than system configuration and maintenance.

Drawing on her knowledge of cloud computing as a former member of the Telestream executive leadership team and her experience integrating diverse companies and products, DeHart will report to Grass Valley’s vice president of advanced technology, Mike Cronk. She will be responsible for creating a comprehensive ecosystem of connected solutions supported by GV AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform), a cloud-native, cloud-agnostic SaaS platform.

“Our customers are facing pressure to deliver more live programming across an increasingly diverse range of platforms and devices. The deployment of cloud production solutions enables them to handle this surge of data and create content in innovative and flexible ways,” commented Grass Valley’s CEO and president, Tim Shoulders.

“With the GV Media Universe, we are creating a coalition of solutions providers that give customers access to an end-to-end cloud ecosystem for all their production needs, while our partners benefit from a frictionless way to get their services to the cloud. By bringing Barbara on board, we will tap into her knowledge and vast expertise to shape the GV Media Universe and ultimately help our customers journey into a cloud-native world.”

DeHart has experience leading worldwide marketing and product marketing teams as well as desktop software and cloud business units at Telestream. With a solid strategic view of technology markets, products, marketing and business development, she has led multiple acquisitions and the subsequent integration of those companies, products and people.

Most recently, DeHart co-founded Sama Learning, a company bringing together immersive technology, artificial intelligence and education science to develop a smart VR learning platform to improve studying, increase engagement and enhance STEM education persistence. She also serves as a mentor to women-led technology companies and is committed to developing the next generation of technology leaders.

DeHart said: “I’ve been looking at the transition of media production to the cloud for the last six years, and live production is one of the most high-value — but also the most difficult — parts of that chain. Grass Valley excels in this area and is leading the way in the industry-wide migration towards cloud adoption. I’m excited to be part of the team that opens up the power of the cloud for our customers.”