Jane Millichip, chief content officer for Sky Studios, is to step down after nine years with the company.
Sky Studios CEO, Cécile Frot-Coutaz, made the announcement in a memo to staff, praising Millichip’s “huge contribution” to the business.
Millichip, who initially ran the distribution arm of the business, added in-house production to her remit with the formation of Sky Studios that now delivers shows including A Discovery of Witches and upcoming in-house production The Rising. She has also led Sky’s push towards sustainable production.
Chief Operating Officer for Sky Studios, Caroline Cooper, will expand her remit to encompass broader commercial activities and production operations, plus Sky Studios Elstree.
Sky Studios Business Affairs, led by Julian Dexter, the International Scripted team, led by Jason Simms, Content Operations, led by Bee Devine, and Director of Corporate Development, Rob Siegel will all now report to Cooper.
Frot-Coutaz’s internal memo to staff:
Dear all,
I am writing to you today to update you on some People news within Sky Studios and to outline our new operating model across the Group.
After 9 brilliant years at Sky, Jane Millichip has decided to step down from her role as Chief Content Officer at Sky Studios to seek new challenges.
As you will all know Jane has made a huge contribution since she joined the business in 2013. Under Jane’s leadership, Sky Vision, Sky’s former production and distribution arm, grew from £8m revenues to £250m in six years and spearheaded Sky’s investment into independent production companies and content distribution.
Since the formation of Sky Studios, Jane expanded her initial commercial remit to include leading our editorial activities across the UK, Germany and Italy with the teams continuing to deliver stand-out Sky Originals like A Discovery of Witches S3, Der Pass S2 and our forthcoming in-house production The Rising, all while managing the ongoing challenges of COVID throughout production. In addition to this Jane has been a strong champion and key architect of Sky’s push into sustainable production across all our Sky Originals as well as our continued drive to attract and elevate diverse talent.
I would like to thank Jane for everything she has contributed to Sky and the support she has provided me in my first few months at Sky Studios. I am pleased that she will remain with the business until the end of April and we look forward to a proper in-person send-off then.
With Jane’s departure Gabriel Silver, Preethi Mavahalli, Jon Mountague, Nils Hartmann and Rebecca Segal will report directly to me.
Having been in role for five months, I have also taken the opportunity to review how we are organised and how we operate. With immediate effect, we are putting in place a number of changes to enable us to better deliver on our significant ambition in original content.
I am delighted to announce that Caroline Cooper will be expanding her remit as Chief Operating Officer, Sky Studios to encompass our broader commercial activities as well as our production operations, plus Sky Studios Elstree. With immediate effect Sky Studios Business Affairs, led by Julian Dexter, our International Scripted team, led by Jason Simms, our Content Operations, led by Bee Devine, and Director of Corporate Development, Rob Siegel will all report to Caroline, who also retains overall responsibility for Sky Studios Elstree. Caroline has been with Sky for eight years, working across a range of commercial, strategy and operational roles and has the perfect mix of skills, experience, and leadership capability to deliver the next phase of commercial and operational growth to Sky Studios.
Given the interdependencies of our operations, commercial and business affairs teams, bringing them together under a single leadership structure will allow us to move quicker, streamline decision making and foster greater collaboration.
Over the past five months, I have witnessed the restless passion this company has to deliver the best content and products to our customers across Europe. With this new operating model in place for Sky Studios, I believe we are well organised to deliver on our 2030 ambition and bring our customers even more Sky Original content worth paying for.
Jon Creamer
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