Ensequence Names Gary Marenzi President

Portland, Oregon-based interactive TV authoring solutions provider, Ensequence, has appointed entertainment industry veteran, Gary Marenzi, as its president, in what it describes as a move to enhance its connection to TV programmers and advertisers and to expand its presence internationally.(Note: Ensequence has secured a number of high-profile deals for its interactive TV authoring software in recent months--with such companies as UKTV, Gemstar-TV Guide, Major League Baseball, and Cox. The company's other customers include EchoStar, BSkyB and the BBC.) Marenzi, who will be based in Los Angeles, was formerly president of Paramount International Television and the Metro Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Telecommunications Group. He will be tasked with representing Ensequence within the entertainment and advertising industries worldwide, and will report directly to the company's founder, Dalen Harrison, who will continue as CEO (Marenzi's entertainment-industry background would appear to complement Harrison's hardcore technical background: among other things, Harrison oversaw the formation of the Advanced Television Enhancement Forum, an alliance of companies that created the seminal HTML- and JavaScript-based ATVEF specification). "The global creative community is embracing interactivity as a key element in each new entertainment production," Marenzi said in a statement. "Viewers are coming to expect interactive content on every imaginable delivery platform in addition to traditional television, which represents an incredible opportunity for Ensequence and the programmers, advertisers and operators that we serve. I'm excited to join the team, as Ensequence is well positioned to become the worldwide standard for interactive television programming and advertising across cable, satellite, broadband, mobile and IPTV."

Marenzi was most recently founder and president of Marenzi & Associates, providing strategic management advice and implementation for the media and entertainment industry. He served as president of Paramount International Television from 1997-2004, where he oversaw the multi-billion dollar distribution of Paramount feature films and television programming to broadcasters and channels outside of the US. He supervised the development and production of television programming customized for the international marketplace, and the co- production and co-financing of programming with international partners, including the USA Network series, "The Dead Zone." During his tenure, Marenzi also forged relationships with such major clients as ProSieben/Sat1 (Germany), M6 (France), RAI (Italy), BSkyB (UK), Ten Network (Australia), SBS (Scandinavia/Benelux) and Global (Canada). During his four-and-a-half-year stint with MGM, he was responsible for the company's international television and worldwide pay-TV operations. His achievements at MGM include securing its long-term production alliance with Showtime Networks. From 1989 to 1992, he was based in London as president of United International Pictures Pay-TV Group, a joint venture between Paramount, MGM and Universal Pictures. Prior to that, he was director of pay-TV for the US and Canada at Columbia Pictures. He serves on the board of NATPE and on the executive committee of the International TV Academy, and is also a member of the executive branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He holds a bachelor's degree from Stanford and a master's degree from that university's Graduate School of Business.

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