MONTREAL—Grass Valley today announced that former Vizrt executive Dr. Andrew Cross has been named Chief Executive Officer of the company effective immediately. Cross was most recently President of Global R&D for Vizrt Group where he oversaw product development across all three brands (Vizrt, NewTek, and NDI). Previously, he was CEO of NewTek until it was acquired by Vizrt Group in 2019.
As CEO of Grass Valley, Cross "will lead the company through the next phase to power the digital transformation of its customers and support them as they transition to the future of media and entertainment through IP, software, and cloud-based technologies," the company said.
Cross's appointment comes amid some recent turbulence at Grass Valley as it went through several executive shakeups and a major rebrand after its acquisition by Black Dragon Capital in 2020.
Last fall, CEO and president Tim Shoulders and Marco Lopez, GM of live production left, and Black Dragon Capital CEO Louis Hernandez Jr. (former CEO of Avid) was tapped to lead Grass Valley as executive chairman. A month prior to that, former Avid executive Jan Lange was appointed CFO and earlier in the year, the company announced a round of layoffs as it transitioned its global headquarters to Canada.
In October, Grass Valley rebranded itself, launching a new corporate identity and marketing campaign, with a new motto, “We Love Live.”
Last month Grass announced 24% growth in 2021 compared to 2020, spurred on, in part, by the media industry's rapid transition to the cloud in light of the increased demand for remote production brought on by the global pandemic.
Cross has had a distinguished career in the M&E tech industry, having revived the NewTek brand during the past two decades by developing the industry's first real-time integrated live production systems. He also led the development of its NDI video over IP and tansport-based codec, which has become the largest IP video standard for live video production, in use by thousands of companies and hundreds of millions of users, according to Grass Valley.
“Andrew is an experienced senior leader with deep industry knowledge and a track record of successfully taking media technology businesses into the new era of software-centric, cloud-based video technology,” Hernandez said. “I’m excited to have Andrew join at this transformative time for the company and industry. I look forward to his direction and leadership of Grass Valley alongside the excellent executive leadership team already in place.”
Cross will lead the Grass Valley team as it emphasizes it GV Media Universe (GVMU), which the company describes as "a digitally connected community that enables media companies to combine on-premise, hybrid and public cloud technologies to build live production environments while adapting to future demands."
“I am honored to be joining Grass Valley at such an exciting time. Our mission is to be the leader in the transition towards software-based technologies—both on-prem and as media companies move into the cloud.” says Andrew Cross, CEO, Grass Valley. “My personal drive has always been to use technology to innovate within the video industry, allowing more people to produce more video; there is no better time for me than this next step to join the most influential and respected company in the industry.”
