Grass Valley ends ‘transformation’ & unveils new senior team

Grass Valley has called an end to its “transformation” to shift into “growth mode”.

As a result, the company has made three appointments to its senior team, as well as being on track to make 400 hires across its locations in Krakow, Poland; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Montreal, Canada.

Jon Wilson will become chief operating officer, joining from Telestream on 1 October. Wilson had been president and COO at Telestream for a little over 18 months, and before that had been chief financial officer since 2019. He has also worked at software company Radisys, and KPMG.

Meanwhile, Ian Fletcher has been promoted to chief technology officer, having previously been SVP of enterprise product strategy since the beginning of the year. In total, Fletcher has been with Grass Valley for almost a decade, joining when it merged with Miranda Technologies in 2014. He replaces Marek Kielczewski, who had only been named CTO in February of this year but left earlier in the summer.

Finally, Adam Marshall has been appointed as chief product officer, having only recently been named VP of marketing earlier this year. He has been with Grass Valley for four-and-a-half years, previously working as pre-sales director and senior global pre-sales manager for AMPP and playout. Marshall will continue to have responsibility for all marketing in his new role.

The trio will work with CEO and chairman Louis Hernandez jr. Hernandez jr became CEO last year following the departure of Andrew Cross, and also led Grass Valley when Cross’ predecessor, Tim Shoulders, left in November 2021. He also previously led Avid for five years before being fired for unspecified workplace misconduct in 2018.

Hernandez jr said: “I’m very proud of the incredible transformation that the Grass Valley family has navigated. We set out a bold ambition to reimagine the future workflow for media and to accomplish this we’d have to work closely with our clients, who themselves are transforming to win in the next phase.

“We’ve simplified our organizational structure, with leadership changes and key new hires, optimized our global facilities, and focused our product portfolio to align with the changing media landscape. With the supply chain issues subsiding, we are seeing a considerable reduction in our backlog. I’m excited for our team and our industry that we are in a position to surge when our clients need us most.”

Marshall added: “With AMPP, we’ve ushered in a new era of cloud-native, open, and integrated solutions for media production, giving our clients the freedom to craft their workflows as they envision, whether it’s on-premises, in the cloud, or a seamless blend of both,” said Grass Valley’s CPO, Adam Marshall. “Combine this with Grass Valley’s industry leading innovations in cameras, routing, processing, and switchers, it underscores our steadfast commitment to propelling advancements in media technology.”

Grass Valley has also launched a group named GVx, which aims to be an industry leadership council. It is comprised of 35 members of the media technology industry, and aims to give insight into issues facing the sector, market trends, and technology needs.