Fremantle restructures European leadership with Paramount hire

Fremantle has strengthened its European leadership with a Paramount Global hire, and a promotion to newly-created chief exec roles.

Jaime Ondarza has joined the producer-distributor as chief exec of Southern Europe, overseeing its production businesses in France, Israel, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.

Ondarza arrives at Fremantle having most recently served as executive vice-president of Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa and head of streaming for Southern EMEA and Latin America at Paramount. During his tenure, he led the digital transformation in the region, overseeing the launch of flagship streamer Paramount+ in Italy and France, alongside AVoD and FAST platform Pluto in these countries and Spain.

Fremantle Netherlands and Belgium boss Georgette Schlick has been upped to chief exec of Northern Europe, with her expanded purview covering the super-indie’s production operations in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Poland, alongside its Dutch scripted label Fiction Valley. Fremantle’s Scandinavian unscripted group, This Is Nice, will continue to be overseen by chief exec Morten Mogensen, who will now report to Schlick.

Schlick has led Fremantle’s Dutch and Belgian businesses since 2014, where she led production labels Blue Circle, No Pictures Please as well as Fiction Valley.

In their respective territories, Ondarza and Schlick will steer Fremantle’s strategic direction, working closely with regional chiefs.

The duo will report to Continental Europe chief exec and group chief operating officer Andrea Scrosati.

Certain drama labels in these territories – Miso Film, Wildside, The Apartment and Lux Vide – will continue to report to Christian Vesper, who was upped to global drama chief exec last week.

Scrosati said: “Through acquisitions and organic growth, Fremantle today is bigger and stronger than ever. We have carefully designed this new structure to best support our regional chiefs across Europe.

“Georgette and Jaime are the perfect choices to manage these key roles and future proof our rapid business expansion.”

This article originally appeared on our sister site, Broadcast.