European streamer Sky Showtime has made a number of senior appointments, drafting in executives from Disney, Netflix and HBO Max.
Hristina Georgieva has been appointed as Chief Business Officer, Brett Horowitz has been named VP Commercial Strategy and Anazia Budhwar joins as Director of Content Strategy.
Comcast and Paramount-backed Sky Showtime recently launched across more than 20 European markets, and has offices in Amsterdam, Budapest, Denmark, London, Madrid, Stockholm, and Warsaw.
Former Disney executive Georgieva will lead the distribution and partnerships function at SkyShowtime and have P&L responsibility for all B2B revenue. In the new role, she will oversee new business development and partnerships with cable, satellite, and telco distributors as well as platforms, device manufacturers, and other partners including retailers as well as consumer products and services.
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Georgieva previously served as VP of Affiliate Distribution & Commercial Development at Disney for four years and was part of the team to launch Disney+ across EMEA, negotiating its first deals with cable, satellite, and telco partners including in many of SkyShowtime’s territories. Before Disney, she held senior roles at Fox Networks Group and Discovery where she led pan-European commercial strategies, partnerships, and distribution.
Reporting to Sky Showtime CEO Monty Sarhan, Georgieva will be based in London and join the SkyShowtime team later this year.
Meanwhile, Brett Horowitz has been named VP of Commercial Strategy, overseeing subscriber growth strategy across D2C and B2B segments and supporting the marketing and distribution & partnerships teams. He joins SkyShowtime from HBO Max where he served in a number of roles including Head of Data, Insights, and Planning and, prior to that, was CFO of HBO Nordics for over seven years. He began his career in media and entertainment as a member of HBO’s finance team in New York.
Anazia Budhwar joins as Director of Content Strategy, working with SkyShowtime’s programming team to optimise acquisition and originals strategies and drive engagement. She joins from Netflix where she served as strategy and planning lead for over three years. Prior to Netflix, she worked at NBCUniversal in London.
Horowitz and Budhwar are part of the newly formed strategy team and report to Chief Strategy Officer Roberto Soto, who joined SkyShowtime late last year from HBO Max.
Sarhan said: “Along with Hristina, these hires show that SkyShowtime is becoming a magnet for talent throughout Europe.”
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