The fast-growing European media conglomerate made up for France’s Mediawan and Germany’s Leonine Studios has named former Fremantle Media executive Caroline Kusser its new head of international co-productions.
Kusser will head up all TV co-production activities at Mediawan, producers of Call My Agent!, and German group Leonine, producers of Dark, overseeing shows across the more than 60 companies controlled by the newly merged combo. Kusser will also run world sales at Leonine from the company’s newly opened L.A. office.
Kusser was a distribution executive at Fremantle and involved in negotiating co-production deals with the likes of Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, Starz and Nat Geo. Before that, she worked out of the U.S. for Red Arrow International, rising to senior vp.
“Caroline is an expert with an excellent network and the ideal person for our planned internationalization and growth strategy in the TV co-production segment,” Mediawan and Leonine co-CEOs Pierre-Antoine Capton and Fred Kogel said in a statement.
Mediawan and Leonine last year acquired the British TV group Drama Republic, producers of Doctor Foster. Other European subsidies include France’s Lagardere Studios, producers of Netflix’s The Eddy and Germany’s Wiedemann and Berg, whose credits include Netflix German-language hit Dark and Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others (2006).
In 2020, Mediawan and Leonine set up a holding group, Mediawan & Leonine, together with financial backers MACSF and Leonine owner KKR, to bundle the two group’s pan-European media assets.
