Brent Montgomery’s Wheelhouse Entertainment Sets Senior Leadership Team With Five Key Hires
Brent Montgomery has set the senior leadership team for his Wheelhouse Entertainment banner, adding five key hires to the company’s growing ranks. All five will work in tandem with recently named President of Wheelhouse Entertainment Sean Cohan, and Chief Strategy Officer Ed Simpson.
Former ESPN strategy and business development executive Julie Souza has joined Wheelhouse Entertainment as chief operating officer, overseeing the company’s operations, and also involved in its corporate and strategic planning, and business development. Jerry DiMeglio has been named chief financial officer, overseeing all financial operations, planning and reporting, as well as analysis and evaluation of acquisition and investment opportunities. DiMeglio previously was CFO at Montgomery’s Leftfield Entertainment, acquired by ITV in 2014.
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Heading up internal marketing and the company’s “experiential” division is seasoned brand expert Kristin Welton, who has been named SVP, marketing, events & brand partnerships. With a background in media, fashion, music and luxury industries, for companies including Nylon Media and Vogue, Welton will be responsible for Wheelhouse Entertainment’s events strategy and spearheading corporate partnerships for Wheelhouse and its production arm, Spoke Studios.
On the business development and acquisitions fronts, Fanny Baudry has been named vice president of business development, West Coast. She was previously with Scooter Braun and BBH’s joint venture The Creative Studio, and Banijay Entertainment. Michael Salerno, an attorney who also worked previously at Leftfield Entertainment, serves as vice president of business development, East Coast.
Baudry and Salerno will work closely with Wheelhouse’s creative teams to drive a variety of deals, strategic partnerships and M&A opportunities across the Wheelhouse lines of business, including in conjunction with Kimmelot, the new entertainment and media venture forged recently with Jimmy Kimmel, who is also a partner in Wheelhouse, and with Portal A, the award-winning, next-generation content studio in which Wheelhouse has partnered and invested, as well as collaborating with Spoke Studios.
Said Montgomery, “2018 was about building the foundation for Wheelhouse, which we envisioned as a major, talent-driven content company that could extend far beyond entertainment and media in order to propel new businesses and opportunities across platforms and industries. It’s an admittedly ambitious venture, and we have been so thrilled and humbled in the last year by the positive reception to it by all of our partners in the content, brand and talent worlds. Now, we are bolstering our own infrastructure with best in class executives – both inside and outside of media – and that represents a major milestone for Wheelhouse. The talent and expertise of Julie, Jerry, Kristin, Fanny, Mike, and of course Ed and Sean, will take us from the building-blocks stage to the building of real Wheelhouse businesses. We are all exhilarated for the ride and for our prospects in 2019.”
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