Cécile Frot-Coutaz

Cécile Frot-Coutaz is the CEO of Sky Studios & Chief Content Officer for Sky. She is responsible for all of Sky’s content offering, excluding Sky Sports, across the UK & Ireland, as well as Sky’s news services across EMEA including Sky News UK and TG24 in Italy. As CEO of Sky Studios, her remit also includes the development, production and commissioning of all Sky Original comedy and drama across Europe, as well as Sky Studios Elstree, Sky’s brand-new, state-of-the-art film and TV studio, plus Sky Studios’ global portfolio of production companies such as Blast! Films, Jupiter Entertainment, True North and Love Productions.

Cécile started her career in strategy consulting at Mercer Management Consulting, in London, where she stayed for four years. In 1994, after obtaining her MBA, she joined the Pearson group headquarters in London. She was subsequently named Corporate Strategy Executive for Pearson TV, where she spearheaded the acquisition and integration of All American Fremantle into the Pearson Television group.

In 2001, she relocated to Burbank as the US commercial lead for the renamed FremantleMedia Group and was responsible for delivering some of the production company’s biggest shows including American Idol and America’s Got Talent. She held several executive roles and positions within the group, eventually ending as Chief Executive Officer in 2012. There she led a restructuring of the business and the strategy maintaining Fremantle’s position as one of the world’s leading content producers, while expanding its capability to enable it to compete in the world of high-end drama, with shows like Deutschland 83, American Gods and The Young Pope. She joined YouTube in October 2018 as Head of EMEA, responsible for all aspects of the business across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, including forging partnerships with and supporting YouTube’s growing community of content creators. She is a graduate of ESSEC (B.A., 1988) and of INSEAD (M.B.A., 1994).