Shake-up at Germany’s UFA sees Natalie Clausen return from Netflix as COO

Fremantle-owned German production group UFA is shaking up its management under recently hired CEO Sascha Schwingel.

Natalie Clausen

Natalie Clausen will become the new chief operating officer of the UFA Group and a member of the management board, effective February 19.

The internationally experienced exec comes from Netflix, where she was most recently responsible for productions such as The Empress, Kleo and Liebeskind as senior production manager in German-speaking countries.

She previously worked as a production and line manager at UFA Fiction on series such as Babylon Berlin, Charité and Deutschland 89.

In her newly created role, Clausen will report to Schwingel who was appointed to succeed Nico Hofmann as CEO last September.

As part of the reorganisation, Joachim Kosack is leaving the management group of the UFA Group and, together with Markus Brunnemann, will focus on managing the UFA Serial Drama division. The pair are co-MDs of the scripted division.

There are also changes at UFA Documentary where its head, Gwendolin Szyszkowitz-Schwingel, is leaving the group. In future, UFA Documentary will be headed by the former co-MD Marc Lepetit.