Banijay Officially Unveils New Sales Team Led By Cathy Payne With Five Key Lieutenants

With its new catalogue of more than 250,000 hours of content since the All3Media merger, Banijay Entertainment has set out the shape of its sales team under chief Cathy Payne.

Payne’s five Banijay Rights lieutenants will be Matt Creasey, Senior Executive Vice President, World excluding EMEA, Stephen Driscoll, Senior Executive Vice President, EMEA, Rachel Job, EVP, Content Shaun Keeble, SVP, Monetisation and Andy Dickens, EVP Communications & Marketing.

The Big Brother, Black Mirror and Peaky Blinders seller has also revealed how it will divide up the rest of its sales team, with notable absences from the list including All3Media International’s popular EVP Formats Nick Smith, who we understand has taken voluntary redundancy.

We revealed on Monday that Job would be getting a key content role, with long-serving sales execs exiting including Simon Cox, Claire Jago, Maartje Horchner and Chris Stewart.

Banijay has been overseeing a consultancy process for staff in recent weeks. The newly mega-merged outfit has always said it will prioritize “eliminating duplication” in distribution and sales as it seeks €50M ($56.8M) in synergies within 12 months of the deal closing. All3Media International CEO Louise Pedersen exited soon after the deal was revealed and Payne took on the combined sales unit.

Payne said: “We are entering this next chapter with an extraordinary catalogue, first-class team and a broad reach of expertise. Uniting the strengths of both businesses, we have created a distribution powerhouse with the scale and capabilities to deliver growth for the group and even greater value for our producers, partners and clients around the world.”

Banijay Entertainment Deputy CEO Jane Turton added: “Cathy is an outstanding leader. She is passionate about the business and is known and respected by everyone in the market. With huge energy and deep knowledge, she has assembled an exceptional team to work with her producers and the vast and growing client base. Banijay Rights is positioned at the heart of the group, with a very clear ambition to continue to grow the revenues generated from rights’ exploitation across multiple platforms and all markets around the world.”