Zodiak Americas staffing up after Gamson and Cabano promotions

Zodiak Americas has promoted Mike Gamson and Sheila Cabano and is actively looking to staff up its development and production teams in the US.

Gamson becomes chief creative officer and Cabano COO.

They will oversee Zodiak’s New York office, which specialises in character-based reality programming for the east coast cable networks. Recent productions include Hardcore Pawn and Lizard Lick Towing. They are actively recruiting to expand their development and production teams.

Formerly senior VP and executive producer, Gamson joined Zodiak in 2002, moving from London to New York in 2005 to supervise the launch of the group’s hit format Wife Swap for ABC.

Cabano has been with Zodiak for seven years and has been upped from senior VP of Production.

“Mike and Sheila have the ultimate combo – a solid track record with their network partners and a close-knit team with a distinct voice,” said Jonathan Slow, CEO, Zodiak Americas. “By putting more development resource into the New York office and giving them complete creative autonomy, they’ll be able to build on their existing slate of programming and continue bringing viewers compelling series with the best reality talent.”

Slow himself relocated to the US last year, to run the Zodiak business there.

Zodiak has the stated aim of doubling the profits of the Americas division by the end of 2014.

Separately, Zodiak’s distribution arm has hired Tim Mutimer from BBC Worldwide. At Zodiak Rights, he will take the newly created role of head of non-scripted programming.