Gerhard Zeiler Sets Senior International Team at WBD

Gerhard Zeiler has unveiled a new international leadership structure at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) that includes a merged AsiaPac operation under James Gibbons and Clement Schwebig taking oversight of Western Europe and Africa.

“Following my recent announcements about the departure of Priya Dogra, Robert Blair, Hannes Heyelmann and Pierre Branco, I have been working with the leadership across the international business to create a new international structure that best leverages the strengths of our businesses, while empowering all of us to drive the future growth and success of the company,” Zeiler said in a memo to staff.

Fernando Medin and Kasia Kieli retain oversight of Latin America and Poland, respectively, reporting directly to Zeiler. James Gibbons will oversee a unified Asia-Pacific business. Clement Schwebig, who previously oversaw India, Southeast Asia and Korea, will lead a single Western Europe and Africa cluster. As previously announced, Andrew Georgiou will lead the U.K. and Ireland as well as WBD Sports Europe. Jamie Cooke, who oversees CEE and MENA as well as creative and pay-TV channels across EMEA, will also become responsible for unscripted and linear content acquisition. Myriam Lopez-Otazu, who is responsible for sourcing unscripted across the EMEA WBD portfolio in collaboration with Meredith Gertler’s team, will now report to Cooke. The team under Gertler, executive VP of global content strategy, planning and analysis, also includes Ragnhild Thorbech, who handles scripted acquisitions.

Alessandro Araimo will continue to run Southern Europe, which combines Italy and Iberia. Christina Sulebakk will continue to run the Nordics region. Vanessa Brookman remains at the lead of the EMEA kids’ business. WBITVP remains under the remit of Ronald Goes. Qaisar Rafique will continue to lead commercial strategy for EMEA and AsiaPac. Business operations for international will be under Louis Goldstein, who expands his role to international home entertainment and content licensing.

“I am delighted to have such a terrific international leadership team with the skills and capabilities to successfully lead us through the next stage of Warner Bros. Discovery’s growth,” Zeiler said. “This team has both the attitude and competence to manage the complexity of the international business and a one-team mindset to collaborate effectively with the global partners across the company. I am fully aware that change can be unsettling, and we have had a lot of changes in these last 18 months. In addition to the organizational and personnel changes, we are also experiencing a difficult macroeconomic situation in combination with an acceleration of the transformational industry trends. This is not an easy situation for any company to manage through, including ours. But I am convinced, more than ever, that with our clearly defined strategy, the IP we have and the content we produce, along with your incredible dedication and commitment to our business, we are in the strongest position to successfully manage the changes and continue to thrive.”