Reemah Sakaan gets expanded role as Skydance reveals int’l leaders, key departures

Reemah Sakaan

Skydance has revealed another raft of executive appointments and departures as JB Perrette, who oversees streaming and television outside the US, establishes the international leadership team following the US$110bn merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD).

In an internal memo, Perrette dropped several major pieces of news, including that Reemah Sakaan, president of UK network 5, will take on the additional role of Skydance MD for the UK and Ireland.

Sakaan is among four regional leaders appointed by Perrette outside of the US. The others are Andrew Georgiou, who will serve as interim president and MD of Europe and Africa before leaving the company next year; Christina Sulebakk, who serves as MD of the Nordics, Benelux, Germany, Austria and Switzerland; James Gibbons, president and MD of Asia Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa; and Fernando Medin, president and MD of Latin America and US Hispanic. In addition, Kasia Kieli will continue to lead the Polish market as president and MD.

Among those leaving the company are Marco Nobili, the exec VP and international GM of Paramount+, Jamie Cooke, who was Warner Bros Discovery’s GM for CEE, Baltics, Middle East, Mediterranean and Turkey; Juan Sola, WBD’s head of streaming in Latin America; Michael Bishara, WBD’s exec VP and GM of global streaming and digital studios; and Paramount’s head of international media networks Pank Patel.

“Our structure will leverage strong local/regional expertise and relationships, and global scale and capabilities…and success will require everyone to make this local and global set-up a powerful network vs. a dreaded matrix,” said Perrette, whose role is co-chair and chief business officer of Skydance’s television and streaming divisions.

This latest round of updates comes after it was revealed earlier this month that neither Kevin MacLellan and Gerhard Zeiler, who had led Paramount and WBD’s international operations respectively, would be joining the merged Skydance company.

Perrette said that more changes are likely to come, adding: “We have been as thoughtful as possible albeit in a very compressed timeframe. Despite our best efforts, there will undoubtedly be further clarifications and refinements that need to be made particularly within sub-teams that will need to be more specifically re-aligned to this new structure.”

Elsewhere, Perrette announced that Warner Bros International Television Production, which houses around 15 production labels including Ricochet, Wall to Wall and Twenty Twenty, is moving under Channing Dungey, who also oversees Warner Bros Television Group and the combined cable network portfolio. The production group, which had previously sat under Zeiler’s international WBD group, will continue to be led by president Ronald Goes.

Perrette also confirmed several positions in the US market, including Josh Walker as chief operating officer of direct-to-consumer, overseeing business strategy and planning, content strategy, planning, analysis and acquisitions, among other responsibilities. Among the execs joining Walker’s team is Rodrigo Mazon, whose pre-merger role was head of Latin America and Canada for the Paramount streaming.

Perrette added that the top job at AVoD platform Pluto TV has not yet been decided, but that the company will undertake a search, looking at both internal and external execs. He stressed the importance of the role, calling Pluto TV a “big and important business” that required “dedicated leadership to help drive it day in and day out.”

These latest tranche of appointments comes after George Cheeks named the leadership team across Skydance’s studios business, entertainment, sports and news.