Black Wednesday: Brad Grey Addresses Whoever's Still Left At Paramount
Moments ago, Paramount Head Executioner Brad Grey addressed his rapidly depleting workforce to explain some of the executive moves that were made on this Black Wednesday, following the official closing of the DreamWorks acquisition. An excerpt from the e-mail:
I wanted to make sure that you were all aware that today we announced the closing of the DreamWorks acquisition. We are well on our way to integrating these two fantastic companies.
While a business transaction of this size always creates some challenges, we are certain that this new chapter in Paramount's great history is going to be made even more exciting by the creative work that will come of our two businesses working together as a major force in entertainment.
Indeed, things have been pretty f'ing exciting on the lot today, at least among the "challenges" who've been lucky enough to keep their jobs. The full e-mail is after the jump:
From: XXX 02/01/2006 05:38 PM To: Paramount_MotionPicture_All cc: Subject: A MESSAGE FROM BRAD GREY
I wanted to make sure that you were all aware that today we announced the closing of the DreamWorks acquisition. We are well on our way to integrating these two fantastic companies.
While a business transaction of this size always creates some challenges, we are certain that this new chapter in Paramount's great history is going to be made even more exciting by the creative work that will come of our two businesses working together as a major force in entertainment.
To that end, we are announcing our new Digital division to be headed by Tom Lesinski. New media platforms will be a huge part of how consumers access Paramount's movies and Tom is the ideal leader to take us into our digital future. Please take a minute to congratulate him on this exciting and important new venture at the studio as President of the Paramount Digital Media Group.
Kelley Avery will step into Tom's role as President of Worldwide Home Entertainment. She joins us from DreamWorks, where she has served since they launched their Home Entertainment division back in 1998.
Some additional appointments that you may have read about already but are no less important are:
Andrew Cripps, who will serve as President of Paramount International Theatrical. Andrew comes to us from UIP in London and will start effective January 2007, as we launch our new worldwide marketing and distribution structure;
Jim Tharp, who joins us as President of Distribution. Jim comes to us from DreamWorks where he has led their domestic distribution unit since the company was formed in 1994; and Hal Richardson has been named President of Worldwide Television, to lead the organization in its rebirth since we lost much of that unit to CBS in the Viacom split.
We've attached the release for you to read more about these new appointments at Paramount.
