Streamer Gaia makes Colquhoun chief operating officer among exec changes

Specialist streamer Gaia has appointed James Colquhoun to the newly created position of chief operating officer, hired Ned Preston as its new chief financial officer and promoted Kiersten Medvedich to president.

James Colquhoun

Gaia is a streaming service featuring programming based around activities such as yoga and alternative healing in English, Spanish, French and German across 185 countries. Its library includes over 10,000 titles and more than 85% of the content is exclusive to Gaia.

The service is available on Apple TV, iOS, Android, Roku and Chromecast, and is sold through Amazon’s Prime Video, YouTube Primetime channels and Comcast Xfinity.

Colquhoun has served as a member of the Gaia board of directors since May 2020. He is the founder and former CEO of Food Matters TV, a health and wellness focused SVoD service, whch was acquired by Gaia in 2019.

Preston previously served as CFO of supply chain visibility services company Tive, before which he held the same role at driverless technology firm Motional.

He replaces Paul Tarell, who is stepping down to pursue other interests and will remain at Gaia until August 1 to complete the handover to Preston.

Meanwhile, Medvedich joined Gaia as senior VP of content in November after 14 years with Sony Pictures Television and was named executive VP of content in 2020.

During her tenure at Gaia, she has scaled the content team and its production capabilities, launched the GaiaSphere live event space and overseen human resources and the marketing team.

Jirka Rysavy, Gaia’s CEO, said: “The return to growth, strengthening of the management team and an increase in member retention rates creates a solid base for the next stage of Gaia.

“For the second quarter, we expect another moderate sequential increase in revenue and member counts like we delivered in the first quarter, but we are also anticipating a return to cashflow generation during the quarter.”