Powers to head BritBox North America

Emily Powers has been promoted to lead BBC Studios and ITV’s joint-venture streaming service Britbox in North America, following the departure of Soumya Sriraman.

Emily Powers

Powers has been appointed as executive VP and head of BritBox North America following the news that Sriraman will leave at the end of the month.

Currently senior VP and commercial head of the streamer, Powers will continue to lead on all commercial relationships, distribution partnerships, performance marketing and customer retention but now adds editorial and creative to her purview.

She is also overseeing much of the business operations for the launch of BritBox in Australia.

As a member of the original team who developed and launched BritBox, Powers was responsible for writing the initial business plan, negotiating and executing the JV relationship between BBC and ITV and directing the service launch in the US and Canada.

Powers joined BBC Studios (then BBC Worldwide) in 2012 as director of strategy and was later promoted to VP of strategy and business development. Before that she was director of business development in NBCUniversal’s Digital Distribution group.

Rebecca Glashow, president of BBC Studios Americas, said: “Emily is an essential part of the BritBox team who has been instrumental to BritBox’s early development followed by rapid growth and significant successes since launch. This promotion is well deserved and I anticipate BritBox will continue to soar under Emily’s leadership.”

Martin Goswami, group strategic partnership and distribution director at ITV, added: “Emily is one of the core team that developed and launched BritBox in North America and has played a large part in BritBox’s ongoing success over the last four years.

“Her strategic vision and extensive experience in video-on-demand make her a natural choice for the role and I look forward to continuing to work closely with her as she leads BritBox into an exciting new era.”