Setanta Sports, the Dublin-based digital media broadcaster, has beefed up its top team with the appointment of three new senior management personnel. The newcomers include Trevor East, the former deputy managing director of sport at BskyB.
East, 54, helped make Sky Sports the UK market leader and one of the world’s top sports broadcasting businesses. East was at BSkyB for 10 years, having joined there after 22 years at ITV where he rose to head of sport.
The company has also appointed Mark O’Meara as chief operating officer. O’Meara, 34, joins from Servecast, Europe’s leading provider of broadband video services, where he has been CEO since 2003.
Meanwhile, Richard Brooke is moving from a non-executive role to become the company’s director of corporate development. Richard, 51, was group finance director of BSkyB until 1998 and has been a board member and advisor to Setanta since 2002.
Commenting on his appointment, East said: “I am joining Setanta at this point in its development because I believe the company has the potential to be a major player in sports broadcasting internationally. I have had 10 very good years at BSkyB where I was privileged to be part of a great team that built up one of the world’s best sports broadcasting businesses. I believe Setanta has the same sort of potential.”
Leonard Ryan, joint CEO of Setanta Sports, added: “Our business has grown rapidly over the last two years and we now have seven channels operating in seven countries. The appointment of Trevor East will make a big impact on our ability to continue this growth and develop our channel operations further. At the same time we have strengthened our business base by making two key board appointments in Mark O’Meara and Richard Brooke. They will bring a level of experience and operating expertise that will enable us to achieve our commercial goals.”
Setanta employs 150 people in Dublin, London, Glasgow and San Francisco. Setanta also has interests in local radio, consumer internet operations, mobile content and broadband distribution.
Setanta was founded in 1992 by Leonard Ryan and Michael O’Rourke, who remain joint CEOs and controlling shareholders. Starting from a base of closed-circuit TV distributing Irish sports to an expatriate audience, the business has grown into an international multi-channel operation.
By Brian Skelly
