Wasabi, the hot cloud storage company, announced that Chris Fenton, recent President & North American General Manager of Shenzhen-listed DMG, has joined their advisory board. In this role, Fenton will bring his expertise and experiences in the media and entertainment world to the cloud storage industry – which is set to top $11.1B annually in 2022, nearly double the current $5.6B.
Fenton has produced and/or supervised 20 films ranging from big budget franchises like Iron Man 3, Point Break and 47 Ronin to niche films like Looper, Waiting, Blockers and Chappaquiddick, grossing $2 Billion in worldwide box-office. During Fenton’s tenure, DMG grew from 35 employees to more than 800, with its value increasing from $100 million to a market cap of roughly $5 billion.
David Friend, CEO and Co-Founder of Wasabi, is no stranger to the Hollywood scene. At the start of his entrepreneurial career, David transformed the music industry with the creation of the music synthesizer company ARP. ARP forever changed the sound of rock music for bands like Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder and The Who. “The growth and need for cloud storage in the media and entertainment space is explosive, and Hollywood content creators are reluctant to store their valuable intellectual properties on AWS, the cloud-based services division of Amazon, as Amazon has become a top competitor for the studios,” said David Friend. “With the addition of Chris as an advisor, we now have a highly-respected media executive able to open doors for Wasabi. This will allow us to tap into decision makers in this sector and share how hot cloud storage dramatically changes the business model of media and entertainment businesses. We look forward to working with Chris for his invaluable insight into this burgeoning industry.”
Fenton added, “Wasabi is a simple-concept, high-growth tech company founded and run by the management team that built Carbonite into a billion dollar-plus company. Climbing aboard was a no-brainer for me.”
“Fenton knows everyone in town, and he understands the content production supply chain from A to Z both domestically and internationally. He’s the perfect choice for Wasabi,” concluded William Sherak, President, Stereo D and Deluxe Post Production.
Wasabi delivers low-cost, reliable cloud storage at 6X the speed and 80% less than Amazon S3 and aims to be the ‘go-to’ storage solution for media and entertainment professionals. Most recently, Wasabi opened a new data center on the West Coast in Hillsboro, Oregon, expanding its connectivity options to include the One Wilshire Data Center in Los Angeles via Wasabi Direct Connect to specifically serve movie studios.
His agencies’ services, for over a quarter century, have helped garner early stage and growth companies significant brand exposure, resulting in either acquisition or IPO, with a total valuation of over $2.5 Billion.
Mr. Chan is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, author, mentor and angel investor. He played key executive roles early on in helping to pioneer and usher in both professional digital audio and digital video technologies for the recording, broadcast, cinematic and post production industries. He also played key executive roles in helping to develop and market data storage technologies. His expansive background spans four decades in ever increasing executive roles in operations, business development, engineering and sales/marketing in the information technology, media & entertainment, storage and networking, and other related high technology industries.
He is an active mentor and senior advisor to many established and VC backed start-up companies and incubators, a market/technology analyst, and has over three decades of experience in brand development, management consulting, company turnarounds, creative advertising and public relations.
A graduate of California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), San Luis Obispo; Mr. Chan recently ended his 14th year as Vice President for the Fullerton College Foundation; 22nd year as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence and mentor for the Small Business Institute at California State University Fullerton and incubators. Additionally, he is a volunteer member of DECA (Delta Epsilon Chi and Distributive Education Clubs of America); an advisor to the College of Engineering's Global Waste Research Institute, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a member of the President’s Green and Gold Society; and advisory council member to Pepperdine University's Most Fundable Companies program. Passionate about hospice care, he was the past Board President for the Healing Hearts Association; and is a regularly featured speaker at many MBA and Doctorate level lectures around the country. He has presented and published over 30 papers worldwide, is a book co-author, an Editorial Board Member for the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, past Senior Editor for Broadcast Beat and AV Beat Magazines, Computer Technology Review, and is a regularly featured Contributing Editor to many US and international trade publications for over 35 years.
View Cognitive Impact services at www.cognitiveimpact.com. Curtis can be reached at [email protected]; Office: (714) 620-4993
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