WarnerMedia has promoted longtime HBO Europe exec Christina Sulebakk to the role of general manager of EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa).
In her new position, Sulebakk—who has headed HBO’s distribution in Europe the last eight years—will now be responsible for upgrading current HBO streaming services including HBO Nordic, HBO España, HBO Portugal, and HBO Go in Central Eastern Europe, to the new HBO Max platform.
She’ll also manage HBO Max’s expansion “in due course” in other territories across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She’ll report to Johannes Larcher, head of HBO Max International.
Ahead of its international expansion, WarnerMedia announced a flurry of other executive appointments:
> Line Mykland, another eight-year company veteran, who led the launch of HBO Nordic, will now lead HBO Max’s content experience team in the EMEA regions.
> Roberto Soto, an Amsterdam-based former ViacomCBS business development executive, will head up growth marketing, leading a team that will focus on commercial strategy and business development, subscriber acquisition, customer service, social media, digital cragtigve and publicity, among other tasks.
> Brett Horowitz, a Stockholm-based, 17-year WarnerMedia veteran who had held the title of CFO of HBO Nordic, will now lead data, insights and planning, overseeing the finance & strategy and data & insights teams.
> Tobias Andersson, a six-year HBO Nordic veteran serving as general counsel, will become the EMEA regional legal lead, part of the HBO Max global legal team led by David Ho.
> Andreas Ferdinand, a Stockholm based executive who has served as a local HBO product manager since 2019, will lead the EMEA region’s product experience effort.
> Mark Spivey, a veteran HBO Europe human resources exec, will be the region’s talent lead.
“With this strong group of executives, their great experience from decades of working within the D2C business and their highly skilled teams, we are more than ready to upgrade our HBO-branded services across Europe to HBO Max, while also planning, preparing and launching in many new territories across EMEA in the years to come,” Sulebakk said, in a statement. “Supported by all our WarnerMedia colleagues and as part of a best-in-class global HBO Max team, I couldn’t be more excited about the ambitious plans for HBO Max and the journey ahead of us.”
