Endemol Shine Int’l hires acquisitions chief

Endemol Shine International has hired a head of acquisitions who will in part replace the departed Georgia Brown.

Simon Cox has taken on the post at Endemol Shine Group’s global sales arm. He takes on duties previously covered by Brown, who was senior VP, acquisitions but exited to join FremantleMedia International as SVP, scripted, earlier this year.

An Endemol Shone spokeswoman said Cox’s new role was more “global” in focus.

Cox was mostly recently investment manager at UK-based Ingenious Media, which helped finance shows such as Channel 4 political drama Coalition and CBeebies newly-launched reboot of The Clangers.

Prior to that, he worked for nine years at the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, where he held posts such as head of business management, content and production and VP, sales and coproductions at BBCWW Canada.

He also worked at BBCWW- and Scripps Networks International-owned channels group UKTV.

AT ESI, he will implement the sales house’s third-party scripted and non-scripted acquisition strategy. This includes managing first-look deals with indies such as Shoebox TV, Ecosse Films, Origin Pictures, Feel Films, Mam Tor Productions and Amber Television, as well as script development deals such as one it has with Intention Pictures.

Cox takes up the post later this month, and will report to ESI chief executive Cathy Payne.

“Both Endemol and Shine have a long and successful tradition of third party representation across scripted and non-scripted including key titles such as Home and Away, My Kitchen Rules, The Block, Hot in Cleveland, Younger, 24 Hours in the A&E, Death Comes to Pemberley, and the upcoming Dark Matter and The Frankenstein’s Chronicles,” said Payne.

“Simon will spearhead our continued acquisitions growth bringing with him a wealth of experience.”

ESI was established earlier this year following the merger of Endemol, Shine and Core Media Group.