Danny Kaye is Executive Vice President, Global Research and Technology Strategy at 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, where he is responsible for new technologies for packaged media and digital distribution, consumer research, retail category management, and market intelligence. Danny combines experience in consumer products industries from toys to gifts to entertainment with his previous academic research in statistics and measurement, human perception, cognition, and intelligence to help drive the studio's efforts to create profitable, consumer-focused, technology-based entertainment platforms Matt Brown is Executive Vice President, Worldwide Commercial, for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE). Brown, who is based in Los Angeles, oversees sales and management initiatives for SPHE's global business throughout North America as well as in 9 operating territories and 33 licensee countries. Brown has served in a variety of roles at SPHE, including most recently as Executive Vice President for North America and International (excluding Europe), and, prior to that, Executive Vice President, Europe. During his tenure he managed some of the company's biggest sales programs resulting in the successful sales performance of hits such as Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, Angels and Demons, 2012, Salt, as well as TV on DVD titles such as Justified and Breaking Bad. As Senior Vice President of Worldwide Franchise Properties, he developed long-term global marketing opportunities for SPHE franchise properties including Spider-Man, James Bond, and Sony Pictures Animation films Open Season and Surf's Up. Before that, Mr. Brown was head of International Home Video for Dreamworks, SKG where he directed the video operation for the international sector overseeing a distribution network in more than 52 countries. He was also Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for West Coast Entertainment Corporation and a Vice President of Sales Distribution at Walt Disney Company's Buena Vista Home Video. Mr. Brown started his career in the home entertainment business as a Senior Vice President and General Manager of Artec Distribution, a Vermont - based home video distribution organization. Mr. Brown attended the University of Rhode Island. Montreal-born Michael Comish is co-founder and CEO of blinkbox.com, the UK's most popular Video-on-Demand website. Since the company was founded in 2006 it has built an audience of over 2 million users per month who watch a library 10,000 movies and TV shows on PCs, Games consoles, Tablets and Internet connected TV sets. Blinkbox was acquired by Tesco in April, 2011. Michael also played a central role in building the pioneering online-video company AtomFilms, which he co-founded in 1998. As President, he helped Atom grow revenues to over £25m year, successfully merge with Shockwave.com, and build a global audience with more than 15 million users/month. AtomShockwave was sold to Viacom for $200m in 2006. Between 2002 and 2005, Comish held the role of Managing Director of 4 Services at Channel 4 - a job which included running New Media, the Studio and post production businesses, 4 Creative, and Corporate Development. A graduate of both The University of Western Ontario and the INSEAD MBA programme in France, he spent the early years of his career at Braxton Associates, before becoming a partner at Mercer Management Consulting. Richard is currently Head of Entertainment at Sainsbury's and built the team from scratch after the demise of EUK. During this time Sainsbury's has enjoyed a fantastic growth period and is planning to extend its reach and market share in non food products including Entertainment via the stores and all channels. Richard started his career in the early 1990's at HMV as a graduate manager and worked there for circa 10 years before leaving to work for 2 distributors THE and EUK. Gary is responsible for the Content category at Dixons Retail. Dixons have taken a lead in this area recognising the part that they play in being able to deliver to their customers the Content that they want. Dixons do this through the sale of millions of connected devices and via the numerous touch points with those customers. Gary originally started off working in the security printing industry and has steadily moved up the technology curve in his various roles at Whirlpool, Samsung, Carphone Warehouse and now Dixons. Zareen Mirza is a Senior Manager for Planning and Strategy in Digital Entertainment for Virgin Media, the UK's leading entertainment and communications company. Zareen is responsible for the Digital Entertainment roadmap and strategic projects, both near and long-term. Zareen has been with the company since 2008, when she joined Virgin Media's Group Strategy function and later specialised in Digital Entertainment. Prior to this, Zareen was at Arthur D Little, the global consultancy. Zareen holds a MSc in Economics & Management Sciences from Southampton University, UK Jasper Smith is a pioneer in interactive media and currently the CEO of PlayJam. During a career spanning 20 years, Smith has developed a number of successful media and tech businesses. Fantastic Corporation was listed in Germany, The Optimistic Network on the UK?s AIM whilst Static and PlayJam (the world?s largest TV games network) were initially backed by HSBC, Sky and Cazenove, prior to being acquired by Open TV in 2001. Smith re-acquired PlayJam from Open TV in 2008, believing the shift to Internet connected TVs would allow PlayJam to become the premier destination for games on TV. A succession of recent distribution deals with Sony, Samsung, LG and Panasonic add to its well-established network via millions of digital TV homes around the world alongside a growing list of third party titles from renowned games developers. PlayJam recently announced $5 million investment from GameStop Digital Ventures, Adobe Ventures and Endeavour Ventures to fuel further growth. Smith initially trained as a sculptor at the Henry Moore Foundation but wasn?t much good so he turned to business instead. He?s a regular sailor and lives in London.



SPEAKING OPPORTUNITIES

For further information about speaking opportunities for PEVE Entertainment 2012, please email events@screendigest.com

Image used ©Trustees of the British Museum

PEVE Entertainment 2012: British Museum, London, 27-28 March 2012