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FRAPA adds four board members

Rights protection association FRAPA has appointed four top execs from ITV Studios, Sony Pictures Television (SPT), Zodiak Media and Red Arrow Entertainment to its general board.

Mike Beale

Mike Beale

Mike Beale, ITV Studios’ executive VP of global development and formats; Lisette van Diepen, SPT’s VP of acquisitions; Grant Ross, Zodiak Media’s executive VP of global creative development and format acquisition; and Michael Schmidt, Red Arrow Entertainment Group’s chief creative officer, have all joined the board.

The appointments come soon after Phil Gurin and Jan Salling came onboard as co-chairs of FRAPA.

Grant Ross

Grant Ross

“Mike, Lisette, Grant and Michael bring to FRAPA a depth of experience and a knowledge of the global formats business that will be invaluable to us as we move into the next phase of our development,” said Gurin.

“Not only are all four at the top of their game professionally but they are also deeply committed to helping us build a fairer, safer, better regulated environment for the creation and trade of formats.”

Michael Schmidt

Michael Schmidt

Other board changes to have taken place in the recent restructuring include the appointment of Keri Lewis Brown, K7 Media’s MD, to the FRAPA management board, where she takes over from Ute Biernat.

The management board now consists of Gurin, Salling, Lewis Brown and FRAPA co-founder David Lyle, whose television career spans 30 years, 20 countries and top executive positions at National Geographic Channels, Fox and FremantleMedia.

Phil Gurin

Phil Gurin

Beale, van Diepen, Ross and Schmidt join existing FRAPA general board members Nicolas Smirnoff, director of Prensario Internacional, and Vivian Yin, chief representative and deputy general manager of Star China International Media.

Meanwhile, Biernat, CEO of Germant’s UFA Show & Factual and former chair of FRAPA, has been named a lifetime ambassador for the association in recognition of her 15 years of support.

Under Biernat’s seven-year tenure as chair, FRAPA underwent a rebranding and restructuring, launching several new initiatives and expanding its suite of services to reflect the format industry’s changing needs.

Jan Salling

Jan Salling

Biernat is the second FRAPA ambassador to have been appointed by the general board. The honour, which was first given to Robert Chua, CEO of The Interactive Channel, is awarded to leading industry figures whose time, knowledge and dedication has been deemed to have resulted in significant progress, projects or initiatives to the benefit of the global business.

“FRAPA is a unique organisation that has played a pivotal role in growing the formats business from a small sideshow to the main event of television into a billion-dollar global industry,” Biernat said.

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