HBO Europe Restructures Original Production Teams

LONDON: HBO Europe has restructured its original production teams, elevating three executive producers to VP roles.

Johnathan Young has been appointed VP of original programming and production for HBO Central Europe, assumes responsibility for the teams in Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and Bucharest. Young previously executive produced the drama series Mammon/Mamon (Czech), The Pact/Pakt (Poland) and Silent Valley/Valea Muta (Romania). He is currently overseeing the second season of The Pack/Wataha in Poland.

Steve Matthews becomes VP and executive producer of drama development for HBO Europe, with a remit that covers Central Europe, Nordic and Spain. His recent executive producing credits for HBO include Wasteland/Pustina (Czech) and Golden Life/Aranyelet (Hungary). He is currently overseeing Blinded by the Lights/Ślepnąc od świateł in Poland.

Hanka Kastelicova takes on the role of VP and executive producer for documentaries. Kastelicova was recently awarded the Eurofipa D’Honneur in January at the 2017 FIPA festival.

All three execs report directly to Antony Root, the executive VP of original programming and production at HBO Europe.

Root commented: “These promotions recognize our senior team’s outstanding achievements over the last few years. The original productions they have overseen have been successful with local audiences, sold internationally, selected for major festivals and have received many awards. Three of our senior executives will now cover specific geographical regions—Johnathan Young at HBO Central Europe, Hanne Palmquist at HBO Nordic and Miguel Salvat, recently appointed at HBO España. Steve Matthews and Hanka Kastelicova will have genre remits respectively in drama development and documentaries across all three HBO Europe regions.”

He added: “We are immensely proud of our programming achievements and that HBO Europe series and documentaries are now being seen and recognized internationally. This has only been made possible by the exceptional quality of our production executives. We look forward to continued success in central and eastern Europe and to building our original programming presence in the Nordic region and Spain.”