Tuesday, April 28th, 2015

Track I: Salon I - Live Webcast from this Room

12:30 PM - 1:45 PM

Hollywood and Media Challenge: Platforms and Convergence - Programming and  Monetization in a Cross Platform Universe

John Penney, Chief Strategy Officer, Starz

Joel Kuwahara, co-founder and principal, Bento Box Entertainment

Richard Berger, SVP Worldwide Digital Strategy and Advanced Platforms, SPHE

Josh Entman, Cofounder and Chief Development Officer, Jukin Media

Hilary Perchard, Vice President - Business Development, BSkyB

Lila King, Senior Director for Product and Partnerships, HLN (Turner Broadcasting System)

Shawn Gold, Advisor, Wattpad.com, Moderator

development; and is an Executive Producer on Bento Box-developed projects.  He was principally involved in the development and implementation of Bento Box Entertainment’s industry-leading all-digital production pipeline; the only such system used in primetime animation, which has transformed the production process worldwide. Joel travels extensively, building alliances and networks in the international animation community.  His game-changing efforts earned Joel the honor of being named an Animation Innovator at Access Intel’s Cynopsis Kids Animation Awards in 2014.  Prior to co-founding Bento Box, Joel was a production executive at Film Roman, where he was Emmy®-nominated as a producer on “The Simpsons”; and was also animation line producer on “The Simpsons Movie.” Earlier in his career as Vice President of Production at the web entertainment innovator Icebox.com, Joel designed and built a digital lab at His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s monastery in Dharamsala, India.  Additional credits include digital producer on the ABC series “The Goode Family”, executive producer of the Imagen Award-nominated Warner Brothers series “Mucha Lucha,” and various producer and production credits on series including “Men in Black: The Series,” “Ghostbusters: The Series,” “The Critic” and more. Joel also co-directed the Starz skateboarding documentary “San Vanelona.”  He is currently the supervising producer on the Comedy Central series “Brickleberry” and the FOX series “Bordertown.”

John Penney is Chief Strategy Officer for Starz. Penney is responsible for building and evaluating key business strategies, partnerships, and identifying and developing new business opportunities across the Starz family of companies.  John joined Starz in March 2010 and was promoted to Chief Strategy Officer from EVP, Strategy & Business Development in November 2013.  Prior to joining Starz, Penney was President and Head of Corporate Development of Foresee Entertainment, a media and entertainment company he co-founded with current Starz CEO, Chris Albrecht in 2008.  At Foresee, Penney was responsible for operations and the planning and development of its strategy, expansion efforts and new business platforms.  Before joining Foresee, Penney served as Head of Global Media Strategy for IMG, Inc., where he was responsible for developing and implementing a new global entertainment strategy, focusing on production and distribution of non-scripted, scripted, and digital programming.  An early and ongoing proponent of the digital transformation of the entertainment industry, prior to IMG, Penney was with HBO for five years, most recently serving as Senior Vice President, Digital Initiatives, where he oversaw the strategic planning, delivery and operational management of digital businesses and new advertising-supported broadband channels.  Penney was Executive Vice President at ACTV, Inc., where he oversaw the development and licensing of technologies and intellectual property for interactive television, personal computer, wireless data and mobile entertainment environments.  Before executive stints at Scient, Inc. and Viacom, Penney spent seven years on Wall Street, both as an equity research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc. covering the media and entertainment industries, and as a financial analyst in the Media & Telecommunications Corporate Finance group of The Chase Manhattan Bank.  In 2014, Penney was elected to the Executive Board of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and remains Chairman of the organization’s Media & Entertainment Council and a member of its Board of Industry Leaders.  In 2014, he began serving as a Founding Member of the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences' Vision Council.  Penney is also an Executive Committee member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Interactive Media Peer Group.  Penney holds a B.A. in Social Psychology from Wesleyan University and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy & Administration, concentrating in Science & Technology, from Columbia University. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

Richard Berger, SVP Worldwide Digital Strategy and Advanced Platforms, SPHE:  Berger is responsible for SPHE's worldwide digital strategy and drives new business initiatives with a focus on emerging digital distribution platforms.   He drives innovation in the home entertainment division by creating new digital consumer experiences and licensing next generation formats like 4K, enabling consumers to enjoy our movies in new ways. He leads the studio's UltraViolet strategy and works with retail partners to enable new digital offerings like enhanced digital extras and disc-to-digital services. Berger also oversees SPHE's direct-to-consumer digital platform and digital supply chain services.  Before SPHE Berger served as SVP of new media and technology at Sony Pictures Entertainment, where he was one of the original creators of UltraViolet and helped form the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem cross-industry consortium.  Berger previously worked in the Sony Digital Entertainment department and the office of the CTO at Sony Corporation of America (SCA), where he was responsible for digital media strategy and anti-piracy efforts. He also worked in SCA’s Interactive Services Group and Sony Music Entertainment’s New Media Department where he developed Sony Music’s first Enhanced CDs.  Before joining Sony, Berger worked in the Interactive Multimedia Practice at Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) and at Bell Communications Research as a Member of the Technical Staff. He has a Master’s Degree in Interactive Telecommunications from NYU’s Tisch Graduate School of the Arts and a BA in Computer Science from Rutgers College.

Lila King became senior director for product strategy and partnerships at HLN in early 2014, during the network’s pivotal transition as the all-screens home for the best social news and lifestyle content. Earlier, King was senior director, social news at CNN Worldwide, and led CNN’s social media efforts, including overseeing the team behind CNN iReport, the network’s global citizen news effort.  Since coming to CNN.com in 2001, King has reported and produced several multimedia stories on a wide range of topics in both domestic and international news. Her team focuses on integrating new technologies into storytelling presentations. In 2006, King launched iReport, CNN’s citizen journalism platform that has more than one million registered iReport contributors worldwide. King’s team was awarded the Knight News Innovation EPpy Award for finding new ways to gather and disseminate news and information with iReport’s Haiti: The Missing & the Found database. Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the database assisted in reconnecting the people of Haiti in finding their missing loved ones. Recently, iReport was awarded a prestigious Webby Award for a mash-up video that stitched together video submissions from over 450 iReporters from over 50 countries and six continents into a one-minute video that resulted in a collective walk around the world.  King started her career at CNN as a webmaster, putting to use the technical skills she developed as a freelance radio producer who wanted to put her work online. She graduated from the University of Georgia with degrees in comparative literature and philosophy.

Hilary Perchard, Vice President - Business Development, BSkyB (Sky):  Sky TV is the UK’s largest Pay TV, Media and Telecommunications company with over 11.5 million subscribers across satellite, OTT and broadband. It also creates a range of pay TV channels including Sky Sports, Sky Movies, Sky News, Sky 1, Sky Atlantic and Sky Arts that reach 60% of UK households.  Hilary has been a key member of the Sky management team for over 10 years.  Of this, 8 years were spent leading the Product Management and Marketing function launching and taking to scale products such as HD (5 million subscribers), VOD (50% connected), TV Everywhere (3.5 million unique users) and Broadband (5 million subscribers). More recently Hilary spent two years leading the customer retention function at Sky, during which Sky demonstrated world-leading levels of customer loyalty.  He now works for Sky in San Francisco helping engage with technology and media companies on the West Coast.  For example, Sky has enjoyed significant success partnering with Roku in the UK to support its move into OTT by white labeling its IP box under the brand, NowTV.

Josh Entman is Cofounder and Chief Development Officer at Jukin Media, and Executive Producer of World's Funniest Fails on FOX. At Jukin, Josh oversees all original content initiatives including the global development, production, and distribution of formatted series across TV, digital, and emerging platforms.  Josh is Executive Producer of World's Funniest Fails, the new one-hour unscripted comedy starring Terry Crews, which airs Fridays at 8/7C on FOX. WFF is based on Jukin Media's owned and operated YouTube channel FailArmy, which has 1.2 billion+ total views and more than six million subscribers.  Prior to Jukin, Josh spent seven years as a media sales director on the West Coast for video and media companies.