Jon Penn, Executive Vice President of BBC Studios Asia Pacific (APAC), has today announced the appointment of two General Managers to lead the BBC Studios teams in Australia & New Zealand (ANZ) and South & South East Asia (S&SE Asia).
Ryan Shiotani, currently Acting SVP, Branded Services, Asia, is promoted to the role of SVP & General Manager, South & South East Asia, based in Singapore and leading the Branded Services, Marketing, Creative, Content and Affiliate Sales teams in South East Asia and India. Fiona Lang, currently Chief Operating Officer for ANZ, has been promoted to the new role of General Manager, Australia & New Zealand, leading the Sydney-based Branded Services (including Marketing, Advertising and Creative), Commercial and Content Sales teams.
Jon Penn, EVP, BBC Studios APAC, said: ‘I’m delighted to promote these outstanding leaders to the roles of General Manager and have every confidence that they are the right people to lead the teams to the next level of growth in the APAC region.
‘As COO for ANZ, Fiona has clearly demonstrated her strategic and commercial ability, as well as an aptitude for project and team leadership. Ryan has successfully developed and led the Branded Services portfolio in Asia, recently stepping up as Acting SVP for Branded Services and demonstrating his business leadership credentials.’
Both roles report directly to Jon Penn, as part of the newly formed Asia-Pacific (APAC) regional business, incorporating Australia, New Zealand and Asia, which was announced in September 2019. They join the following people on the APAC Executive Leadership Team:
- Kelvin Yau, SVP & General Manager, Greater China
- Geo Lee, SVP & General Manager, North East Asia
- Phil Hardman, SVP Commercial Operations & Strategy, Asia
- Julia Nocciolino, SVP Commercial Director, China
- Laura Byrnes, Head of Business and Legal Affairs, APAC
- Laura Parsons, HR Business Partner, APAC
- Laura Dumbrell, Head of Communications, APAC
- Angela Muddle, Head of Commercial Finance, Asia
- A new Head of Finance for ANZ (currently being recruited)
Ryan Shiotani joined BBC Studios in 2007 as Director, Programming, Asia, overseeing the editorial direction of BBC Studios’ Branded Services in Asia, including programming, acquisitions, presentation planning and media planning.
As Vice President, Content, he has built the company’s portfolio to include BBC Earth, BBC Lifestyle, BBC First, CBeebies and BBC Player across linear and digital platforms. He also works closely with Sony BBC Earth, BBC Studios’ joint venture with Sony Pictures Networks India.
In August 2019, Ryan became Acting SVP, Branded Services Asia, also leading the Marketing, Creative and Insights teams locally.
Prior to joining BBC Studios, Ryan worked across programming, acquisitions, content sales and production in Asia, Latin America, Europe and North America for Discovery Networks Latin America/Iberia, MTM Entertainment, TV Globo and Sesame Workshop.
Fiona Lang has been Chief Operating Officer, BBC Studios in Australia & New Zealand, since 2014. In this role she has primarily focused on: setting the regional strategy, including the optimisation of Branded Services; growing the business and client relationships through new business development initiatives; and overseeing Operations & IT and Legal & Business Affairs in the region. Her work covered all business units which BBC Studios operates in the ANZ region.
Fiona joined BBC Studios in 2012 from private practice where she worked in mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate across various industries, including the retail, FMCG, telecommunications, media and communications sector. Working at Herbert Smith Freehills and Gilbert & Tobin lawyers in Sydney and for Hogan Lovells in Berlin, her clients included News Corp, Yahoo! Inc, Seven Network, Telstra, Pacific Magazines and Diageo.
