Jane Smith Joins TwoFour54

The media industry funding and support pillar of the Abu Dhabi-based content creation community, twofour54, has announced the appointment of Jane Smith as General Manager, ibtikar commercial.
Smith's role will focus on establishing the commercial framework to house all content and IP created within the twofour54 business divisions. The role will also focus on multi-platform rights exploitation. Smith will be responsible for maximising distribution of all content created by twofour54 at a regional and international level, forging relationships with key global partners across broadcast television, digital platforms, publishing, gaming and consumer products.
ibtikar commercial will be involved with a broad range of content genres across drama, factual, live action and animated children's programming and natural history.
Smith brings to twofour54 a wealth of industry knowledge and experience, joining from Entertainment Rights where she was Managing Director of Distribution and latterly Chief Commercial and Creative Director. Prior to this, Smith held roles at Hit Entertainment, Sunbow and Flextech Television.
Her expertise in the creation, production and development of children and family content on brands including Where's Wally, Rupert Bear and Postman Pat, means that she will play a pivotal role in developing the commercial proposition of twofour54 ibtikar's first project Driver Dan's Story Train, which will be screened at MIP Junior and sold to international broadcasters during MIPCOM.
This animated series, produced by 3Line Media, will debut in the spring of 2010 in the UK on the BBC's flagship UK children's channel CBeebies. Story Train provides a great deal of international opportunities as it is easily adaptable to any market through its combination of animation and live action and the ability to use stories written by local authors.
Currently Story Train is being adapted into Arabic by twofour54 for the pre-school audience in the region - a market with huge growth potential given the young and growing population across the Middle East and North Africa region.
Commenting on her appointment, Wayne Borg, Chief Operating Officer, twofour54, said: "Jane's appointment represents a major milestone in the development of twofour54 ibtikar.
"Not only are we able to provide funding and support to fledgling media ventures and creative individuals, we have the ability to truly harness the value of our projects through the commercialisation of content and the IP associated with it. This will enable us to deliver on our goal of creating a sustainable media industry in the UAE and across the region."
Jane Smith, GM, ibtikar commercial, added: "I am delighted to be joining twofour54 at such an exciting time in its development; with MIPCOM and MIP Junior just around the corner, we are looking forward to showing off Driver Dan's Story Train to the industry. This role will allow twofour54 to explore and develop a wider range of commercial opportunities in the content creation space."
(KMcA/BMcc)