New International Sales Execs for MarVista Entertainment

LOS ANGELES: In an effort to expand its European presence, MarVista Entertainment has appointed Rod Rodrigo and Andrew Whiteman as directors of distribution for the region.

In their new roles, Rodrigo will sell to the U.K., Scandinavia, Benelux, Greece and Turkey, while Whiteman will focus on Germany, CEE, Russia and CIS. Both execs will work out of London under Vanessa Shapiro, MarVista's executive VP of distribution.

Rodrigo previously served as sales director for Istanbul's World Wide Entertainment. Before than, he spent more than a decade at IMC Vision in London. Whiteman comes from Power Media Entertainment, where he became the head of sales planning and operations when the company was acquired. Earlier in his career, he worked for a number of marketing and sales promotion agencies.

"Our business is expanding so rapidly with over 2,000 hours of top notch content playing out across more than 125 markets around the world, and our commitment to continue investing in original and acquired content has fueled greater growth," noted Shapiro. "Both Rod and Andrew are highly skilled sales executives with a keen understanding of production, marketing and consumer media consumption trends and share our vision for providing quality programming that is well-suited to buyers' brands and distribution platforms. They are a welcome addition to the MarVista sales team, and I'm very confident that they will be tremendous assets in continuing the momentum the company has created over the past decade."

"MarVista is the ideal company to utilize my experience in content, co-production and format sales while also providing opportunities to collaborate with many of my long-standing broadcaster, producer, artist and agency friends," said Rodrigo. "Fernando [Szew, the CEO of MarVista], Vanessa and the team have built an amazing operation, and I'm eager to make my own contributions to MarVista's long-term growth strategy."

"I share MarVista's commitment to delivering quality content, targeted viewers and superior customer service for the long haul as is evidenced by my track record over the past 20 years," added Whiteman. "With the breadth of original and acquired content that MarVista brings to the marketplace, I know that we're going to be very busy responding to buyers' demand for popular programming now and well into the future."