ITV shakes up senior digital team

UK commercial broadcaster ITV has rejigged its senior digital management as it sets about fulfilling new CEO Carolyn McCall’s ‘more than TV’ mission.

Carolyn McCall

Mark Smith is taking on the newly created role of group chief technology officer and will lead the ITV group-wide strategy and vision, overseeing engineering, infrastructure and operations.

He joined ITV in 2011 as director of architecture and engineering, moving to his present role as ITV chief technology officer in early 2015. Prior to that he was at the BBC where he was responsible for the design, build and delivery of digital products including the pubcaster’s iPlayer.

Reemah Sakaan will step up to oversee the development of an ITV SVoD service as group launch director. She is currently senior VP of creative and editorial for BritBox – a joint-venture North American SVoD service between ITV and the BBC.

ITV says Sakaan will continue to play a pivotal role in BritBox in the US and Canada as well as focusing on an SVoD launch in the UK. Prior to launching BritBox, she was director of marketing and media for ITV and had eight years at the BBC in various marketing roles.

Karine Serfaty, formerly senior VP of data and insights for the New York Times, will become ITV’s first chief data officer. Dan Colton has joined as strategy implementation director having most recently worked at Boston Consulting Group and Deloitte.

McCall, who arrived from budget airline EasyJet to replace Adam Crozier as CEO, unveiled plans to increase its OTT offerings in addition to the ad-free ITVHub+ service in July.

McCall said today: “We explained in July how ITV will in future drive profit from three separate sources: advertisers, broadcasters/platforms and consumers, and how we will invest in the ITV brand, in data and digital capabilities and the further development of ITV’s creative and commercial strengths.”

The new appointments are effective immediately.