NATPE Global, which is now owned by Toronto-based Brunico, has added staff ahead of its planned return to Miami this January.
Led by previously announced executive director Claire Macdonald, who was formerly senior VP and publisher of Realscreen, the team now includes Jen Fitzgerald as senior conference producer, Brian Boudrea as sales manager and Cesar Diaz as buyer relations manager for Latin America and Hispanic U.S. In addition, NATPE Global has expanded the remit of Victoria Elmacioglu, head of buyer relations and business development manager, Europe, and Jose Sanchez, business development manager, to represent NATPE Global as well as NATPE Budapest.
Brunico acquired the assets of Los Angeles-based NATPE in January after it declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to the financial pressures created by the pandemic. Brunico also produces Realscreen Summit, Kidscreen Summit and the Banff World Media Festival, as well as publishes such trade publications as Realscreen, Kidscreen and Playback.
Fitzgerald has produced such large-scale events as The Canadian Comedy Awards, CANCOM Comedy Symposium, Realscreen Summit, Realscreen Awards and the Marketing Evolution Summit and Media Innovation Awards. Before joining Brunico, she spent six years working with the live-action production unit at Canada’s Corus Entertainment working with such brands as YTV, CMT Canada, OWN Canada and W Network.
Boudreau has been with Brunico for nearly seven years, starting as event sales representative for all company events and working his way up to senior account manager with Playback Magazine and Banff World Media Festival.
Based in Miami, Diaz leads his own company, 7A Media, which focuses on content development, international sales and consulting. For more than 30 years he has worked for various Latin American television enterprises including Venezuela’s Radio Caracas Television, Argentina’s Telefe and Spain’s Telefónica de España. He also spent 22 years with Cisneros Media Distribution, formerly Venezuela’s Venevision International. While at the helm of the international sales division for each of these companies, Diaz worked to export telenovelas to non-Spanish speaking markets such as Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa while maintaining a strong presence in all of the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America as well as Spain and North America.
Based in Greece and with more than 20 years of experience in production development and distribution, Elmacioglu’s legacy production company and studio facilities — Television Enterprises — has produced content for channels and platforms operating throughout Europe and the Middle East. In 2017, she organized the Mediamixx Festival in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Sanchez is a senior business development leader with more than 20 years experience across the entertainment industry where he’s worked with such companies as Disney/ABC, BBC, A&E, Discovery and Reed Midem.
NATPE Global 2024, which will include programming buyers and sellers as well as distribution decision-makers from connected TV device manufacturers and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), will be held January 16-18, 2024, at downtown Miami’s InterContinental Hotel.
