Int’l sales chief Endemaño exits Disney

The senior VP of media distribution at Walt Disney International has left after 14 years at the media conglomerate as part of its ongoing global restructure, C21 has learned.

Mark Endemaño

Mark Endemaño, whose international sales role was expanded to cover all markets outside North America in October last year, left the company this week. Disney declined to comment when contacted by C21.

Disney is in the process of restructuring major parts of its operations, including its media distribution business, ahead of its expected US$71bn acquisition of major 21st Century Fox assets.

C21 understands Endemaño’s role, which saw him oversee commercial strategies for linear TV and digital distribution for all of the company’s international assets, including Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm movies, ABC Studios and the Disney channels, has been eliminated as part of the restructure.

Prior to his promotion last year, Endemaño was senior VP and general manager of media distribution for The Walt Disney Company EMEA, and before that, chief financial officer for The Walt Disney Company EMEA.

Before joining Disney in 2003, Endemaño was a director at consultancy firm Deloitte’s media and entertainment practice.

Endemaño’s departure from the Mouse House comes as the company is tipped by US analysts to beat Comcast in the bidding war for parts of 21st Century Fox after significantly increasing its bid this week.

Should it be successful, Disney will gain control of assets including Fox’s US cablenets and stakes in European satcaster Sky and production giant Endemol Shine Group.

The mega-deal will also see a huge overlap between both companies’ distribution teams and, with the acquisition set to yield at least US$2bn in cost savings as the businesses combine, is expected to result in job losses at both companies, in the US and abroad.

The Walt Disney Company has already restructured to bring its direct-to-consumer (DTC) services, technology and international media operations into a single worldwide business.

This saw the programme sales operations headed by Janice Marinelli integrated into the DTC and international business unit. These included global distribution of film and TV content to the Disney DTC streaming service, Hulu and other third-party platforms and channels.