WSM Allies of the Month 

For International Women’s Month, we’re celebrating Mark Harrison and Rowan de Pomerai for their commitment to diversity and inclusion in the industry! As Founder & Chief Content Officer of DPP, Mark has shaped the industry through innovation and leadership. Rowan, CEO of DPP, continues to foster collaboration, driving impact across 500+ member companies worldwide. Under their leadership, DPP has created space for underrepresented voices, amplified women in streaming media, and ensured diverse perspectives shape industry conversations. Beyond words, they take action, making them true champions.

Bruce Devlin is well known in the media industry for his work on files and systems; particularly MXF and IMF. In the last 3 decades his presentations and Bruce’s Shorts videos have become the go-to resource for CFOs, CTOs and students wanting to figure out the business of technology. Bruce has designed everything from ASICs to algorithms. He tweets as @MrMXF, he literally wrote the book on MXF. He ran standardisation activities at SMPTE for 4 years and now co-chairs the Technology committee responsible for ST 2110.

Jason Thibeault is the Chief Executive Officer of the Streaming Video Technology Alliance (SVTA), the international technical association focused on solving critical challenges in delivering high-quality video streaming at scale. He is a recognized expert voice in the streaming industry and is a contributing editor to Streaming Media Magazine. Prior to his current role, Jason spent eight years at Limelight Networks, a leading CDN, where he held several roles including product manager and marketing strategist. Jason is also the co-founder of Datazoom, a startup focused on high-speed data collection and automation, and acting CMO of Blockcast, a next-generation decentralized multicast CDN. He is also an inventor of multiple technical patents in streaming and cloud technologies and the co-author of one marketing book, Recommend This

Ajey Anand is the CEO & co-founder of Norigin Media, a Scandinavian TV Tech & OTT solutions company. He has served as Chief Executive Officer since 2015 and has worked with broadcasters and operators for nearly two decades. Through developing streaming services, he has become passionate about TV Apps and the implementation of UI/UX technologies to create the highest quality OTT experiences.

A digital media and entertainment expert with over 2 decades of experience at the intersection of tech, creativity, and business. As the CTO of Media at Microsoft, he spearheads cloud, AI, and edge strategies that transforms how media and entertainment companies create, distribute, and monetize content. A published author on video compression and a frequent speaker at global industry events, Andy has been pivotal in driving partnerships and major deals with NBA, Disney, and Fremantle.

Ganeshi the Awesome has over 17 years in the tech industry, focusing on systems architecture.  He was formerly with AWS, cloud security, and he embodies expertise with digital workflows around CDNs, WAFs, appSec, zero trust solutions, and logging.  Ganesh always promotes diversity, ensures fairness, and creates an inclusive environment where everyone feels valued.  Watch the video to find out why he is Awesome!

Tegan is a global executive recruiter helping clients find top Executive and C-Level talent across the content and media industry. With over 7 years of experience, she is highly skilled and knows the relevant markets very well having established lasting relationships within the industry.

Emmy award-winning product and operations leader with vast experience across top streaming companies.

Adam is the Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer at Ovyo, one of the fastest-growing providers of software & project delivery services to the video streaming industry. Ovyo’s global team of 120 + engineers work for broadcasters, operators and software vendors to write, integrate and deploy software, deliver complex projects and provide strategic consulting. Alongside Adam’s professional endeavours he is committed to promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the video streaming, media and broadcast sector. In 2023 he was awarded Ally of the year for his work helping 100’s of women elevate their personal brand on LinkedIn.

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Hodge is the CEO and Co-Founder of OTTera, a leading service provider specializing in content distribution and monetization across all platforms. He not only sets the strategic direction for content licensing, business development and monetization, but also ensures that OTTera and its affiliated companies maintain a competitive edge in the ever-evolving digital landscape. Under Hodge’s guidance the distribution of services has skyrocketed, reaching nearly 100M monthly unique viewers across every major consumer electronics device on a global scale. Hodge’s journey in technology leadership spans companies such as Toon Goggles, Digital Media Interactive, and Anywhere Artists.

An exiting discussion where our esteemed panelists shared personal anecdotes, examples, and best practices related to Allyship in the context of streaming media, and they  tackled thought-provoking questions aimed at fostering an insightful dialogue.

JP is the founder and CEO of Qualabs, a video software engineering service provider, with a team of 100 professionals working on media tech in US and Europe from Uruguay. He has 15 years in the industry and is an active member of our community in tech conferences and as the organizer of MonteVIDEO Tech. Beyond business, he’s committed to fostering education and entrepreneurship as catalysts for social impact, being an active board member of several NGOs.

Stefan Lederer serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Bitmovin, an Emmy® award-winning provider of software solutions. He established Bitmovin with a foundation rooted in research and standardization of MPEG-DASH, pioneering a developer-centric approach in delivering software products to prominent media enterprises globally. His leadership has been instrumental in navigating Bitmovin through a pivotal phase in the video and television industry, marked by significant transformation and opportunity.

Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen is the Chief Marketing Officer at id3as, the company behind Norsk. Before joining id3as, he was editor and VP of Streaming Media magazine. He has chaired the industry-leading Streaming Media conferences and worked as a leading music journalist.

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