MONTREAL—Grass Valley has appointed media technology expert Barbara DeHart as director of alliances for the GV Media Universe. In this newly created role, DeHart will focus all of Grass Valley’s strategic partnerships on bringing together solutions from broadcast technology vendors into a unified cloud-native ecosystem.
According to Grass Valley, “GV Media Universe is the company’s vision for transitioning to the software- and cloud-based future of content creation and distribution in a safe, efficient, proven ecosystem of new operations and business practices.”
DeHart will report to Mike Cronk, Grass Valley’s vice president of advanced technology, and be responsible for creating a comprehensive ecosystem of connected solutions supported by GV AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform), a cloud-native, cloud-agnostic SaaS platform.
“Our customers are facing pressure to deliver more live programming across an increasingly diverse range of platforms and devices. The deployment of cloud production solutions enables them to handle this surge of data and create content in innovative and flexible ways,” said Grass Valley’s CEO and President Tim Shoulders in a press statement. “With the GV Media Universe, we are creating a coalition of solutions providers that give customers access to an end-to-end cloud ecosystem for all their production needs, while our partners benefit from a frictionless way to get their services to the cloud. By bringing Barbara on board, we will tap into her knowledge and vast expertise to shape the GV Media Universe and ultimately help our customers journey into a cloud-native world.”
DeHart led worldwide marketing and product marketing teams as well as desktop software and cloud business units at Telestream. With a strategic view of technology markets, products, marketing and business development, she has led multiple acquisitions and the subsequent integration of those companies, products and people. Most recently, DeHart cofounded Sama Learning, a company bringing together immersive technology, artificial intelligence and education science to develop a smart VR learning platform to improve studying, increase engagement and enhance STEM education persistence. She also serves as a mentor to women-led technology companies and is committed to developing the next generation of technology leaders.
“I’ve been looking at the transition of media production to the cloud for the last six years,” DeHard said, “and live production is one of the most high-value—but also the most difficult—parts of that chain. Grass Valley excels in this area and is leading the way in the industry-wide migration towards cloud adoption. I’m excited to be part of the team that opens up the power of the cloud for our customers.”
