Warner Bros. Discovery confirms its global leadership team

The newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery has named its international leadership team under Gerhard Zeiler, who held the role of International President for WarnerMedia and now adds Discovery’s global enterprise to his portfolio.

“The company is putting in place dedicated regional leads to reflect the scale and complexity of the business, which would, in turn, increase focus on key markets. This results in a different geographical split to the pre-merger state, which will also allow each regional leader to more rapidly assess opportunities for growth and efficiency and integrate the two companies quickly,”  said Zeiler in a staff memo, Señal News confirmed today.

The Warner Bros. Discovery team is restructuring as follows:

▸ Priya Dogra, based in London and former President of WarnerMedia Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia (excluding China), now will focus only on EMEA (excluding Poland).

▸ Anil Jhingan, President and Managing Director for Discovery Asia Pacific, will lead business development for the enlarged Warner Bros. Discovery group across international markets.

▸ James Gibbons, who oversaw Discovery UK and Ireland as well as the Nordics from London, will become President and Managing Director of Australia, New Zealand and Japan, based in Asia.

▸ Kasia Kieli was appointed President and Managing Director of Poland and CEO of TVN.

▸ Fernando Medin was named President and Managing Director for Latin America and US Hispanic, based in São Paulo.

▸ Clement Schwebig was named President and Managing Director for South-East Asia (SEA), Korea, and India, based in Singapore.

▸ Gillian Zhao, WarnerMedia’s President of China, will continue in her current role, which she began in 2016.

▸ Andrew Georgiou will continue as President and Managing Director for Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe, based in London.

▸ Robert Blair will lead licensing as President of International Television Distribution.

▸ Ronald Goes continues as Executive VP and Head of International TV Production.

At the same time, as part of the reshuffle, Whit Richardson, President of WarnerMedia Entertainment Networks for Latin America and a 20-year WarnerMedia veteran, is exiting the company, but will remain for a transition period. Fernando Medin will take care of his tasks as the new President and Managing Director for Latin America and US Hispanic.

"My years in Latin America with you by my side made me a better human being. I learned so much from you. I thank you for that and for your unwavering solidarity and support. I am sure that you, like me, will provide the same to your new leader, and I close this note by congratulating him and wishing him all the best in his new role,"   Richardson said in a letter to its colleagues to which Señal News was able to access.

“Each of WarnerMedia and Discovery should be proud of the leaders they’ve developed over the years. Our decisions result from a thought-through process that included ensuring that the leadership team reflected the breadth of experience and talent across the two businesses. None of these decisions were easy or taken lightly,”  Zeiler concluded.

●  HBO MAX HITS 76.8 MILLION GLOBAL SUBSCRIBERS

The announcement of the restructuring coincides with the good results of the group's flagship streaming platform, HBO Max, which added 3 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2022, bringing their total to 76.8 million worldwide. In detail, HBO and HBO Max added 1.8 million domestic subscribers in the first quarter, reaching a total of 48.6 million. The 3 million quarterly uptick also matched the growth in Q1 2021 in the midst of the pandemic. Subscription revenues also climbed 4.4% to $4 billion — which drove WarnerMedia revenue to $8.7 billion — a 2.5% increase from the year before.