Media Localizer BTI Studios Reshuffles Leadership, Hires New CFO and CTO

The BTI Studios global leadership team is getting a major overhaul. The Sweden-headquartered media localizer has announced two new hires and six senior appointments as part of a corporate restructuring. The announcements come just weeks after former CEO-turned-board member Björn Lifvergren decided to sever all ties with the company he founded more than 20 years ago.

In a May 2, 2019 post published on Lifvergren’s website and on LinkedIn, Lifvergren gave the reason behind his departure: “BTI Studios is taking a new course with the new management, that I do not support, as a result I’m taking the consequences and am leaving the board.” Lifvergren declined to comment further when Slator reached out to him at the time.

The two new hires will assume the roles of Chief Finance Officer (CFO) and Interim Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

• Andrew Court will join BTI Studios as CFO on July 1, 2019. Court is a seasoned CFO of private-equity-backed companies in different sectors including broadcast media. He has held prior roles in M&A, strategy, and corporate finance and is currently CFO at UK-based IT software and business services provider Agilisys.
• Taking up the post of Interim CTO is Fredrik Nylander. Nylander currently sits on the board of BTI Studios and is Advisor to Altor, one of BTI’s private equity backers. Nylander also sits on the board at another of Altor’s portfolio companies, Transcom, a multilingual customer experience (CX) service provider that is a majority owner in Swedish LSP Transvoice AB.

According to LinkedIn, the current holders of these posts are Henrik Wikren (CFO since October 2009) and Robert Holmstrom (CTO since January 2016).

The six other global leadership appointments are promotions of current BTI employees. Four of six promotions came as a result of a global restructuring, as BTI Studios has reorganized itself into four separate geographical regions and has named regional managing directors for each.

• The Americas: Heading up The Americas is Chris Carey, who is taking on the responsibility of General Manager in addition to his current Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) role at BTI Studios. Carey is a former Disney and Paramount executive who first joined BTI in March 2019. He reports directly to Shaun Gregory who succeeded Björn Lifvergren as CEO when Lifvergren transitioned into a board role in the fall of 2018.
• NUK: Maria Słomkowska is being promoted to the role of Managing Director for NUK (Northern Europe and UK). She has been with BTI Studios for over six years.
• FIGS: Martina Berninger will head up the France, Italy, German and Spain (FIGS) region for BTI Studios. Berninger joined the media-localizer when BTI Studios acquired German dubbing studio Berliner Synchron, where she was co-CEO, in December 2018.
• APAC: YC Sun is the Asia Pacific (APAC) Managing Director for BTI Studios. He had led BTI Asia since joining the company from rival media localizer SDI Media in 2017.

In addition to the appointment of managing directors for the four regions, BTI has promoted two of its other execs to lead the Dubbing and Subtitling functions.

• Dubbing: Anders Krogsgaard, formerly of SDI Media, has been named Global Director of Dubbing for BTI. He was most recently Managing Director of Nordic Dubbing at BTI Studios.
• Subtitling: Longtime BTI employee Katherine Hodkinson has been promoted the role of Global Director of Subtitling. Hodkinson joined BTI Studios in 2005.