Warner Bros. Discovery reorganizes its MENA and EMEA leadership teams

Warner Bros. Discovery has revealed the leadership team for Central Eastern Europe, Baltics, Middle East, Mediterranean and Turkey, following Jamie Cooke’s appointment as General Manager of the region in June. The whole team is overseen by Cooke, who now reports to Priya Dogra, President and Managing Director of EMEA.

Roni Patel, currently SVP of Sales for the Nordics, Benelux and Middle East, will be responsible for managing content licensing for CEE MENAT and the Nordics, while Discovery’s former VP of Ad Sales for CEE MENAT, Andrei Grigorescu, now takes on the same role at the merged company. Meanwhile, Cristina Valasutean, WarnerMedia’s Sales Director, will be responsible for business development and distribution in Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. At the same time, Francesco Perta, Discovery’s Senior Business Development and Distribution Director, will take on the same role for MENA and Turkey.

Kenechi Belusevic, who was Senior Director of Distribution and Business Development at Discovery, will take on the same role at the combined company for SEE (Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Slovenia and Albania), the Baltics (Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania), CIS (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan), the Mediterranean (Greece, Malta and Cyprus), and Israel. Belusevic will also lead on commercial sports development across the combined region.

Moreover, Grigory Lavrov, former General Manager of Media Alliance in Russia who joined Warner Bros. Discovery earlier this year, is now responsible for trade marketing across the combined region, and channel management for TLC and DMAX in Turkey, and Fatafeat in the Middle East. Lee Hobbs, Discovery’s SVP of Pay TV and Global Brands for EMEA, will be responsible for the EMEA-wide pay TV channel business (including Discovery Channel, TLC, HGTV and ID brands), and will take on the responsibility for the new-look EMEA WBD Creative Agency, servicing multiple content and channel brands.

Lastly, Mabelie Bruijns has been appointed to head all communications across the combined region and pay TV networks business in EMEA for the merged company. Bruijns was previously Senior Director of Communications for CEEMEA at Discovery.