TORONTO — Hollywood Suite this morning announced two internal staff promotions. Sharon Stevens (above, left) has been promoted to vice-president of programming, and Julie Kumaria (right) is now senior vice-president of marketing and content distribution.
As director of programming from 2017 to 2020, Stevens “took Hollywood Suite’s schedules to new heights of creativity and viewer engagement”, says the press release announcing the promotions. Since early 2020, Stevens has led the programming team as they curate, commission and schedule Hollywood Suite’s movie channels, along the way garnering audience accolades such as “tell your curatorial staff they are f**king geniuses”, says the release issued by David Kines, president and co-founder of Hollywood Suite.
Prior to joining Hollywood Suite in 2017, Stevens helmed programming at Blue Ant Media (T+E and seven other channels) and at Glassbox Television (BiteTV and Aux) before it was acquired by Blue Ant.
Kumaria joined Hollywood Suite in 2013, taking on progressively increasing responsibilities, including leading the company’s team of marketing, creative, social media, partnership, advertising, affiliate relations and on-air promotions colleagues. Prior to her job promotion announced today, she was the company’s vice-president of marketing and content distribution.
“From launching new series, to engaging the film fan community with creative engagement opportunities, to overseeing original in-house productions, Julie’s cool, steady hand and exemplary leadership has been instrumental in the growth of Hollywood Suite,” reads the press release.
Before joining Hollywood Suite, Kumaria worked at Astral Networks, Insight Sports and Shaftesbury Films. She is on the board of CTAM Canada and served as president from 2018-2020, and sits on the advisory board for The Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema. In 2017, she was awarded the CTAM U Fellowship Award to attend Harvard Business School, and in 2016 won the Women in Communications and Technology (WCT) Mentor of the Year award.
Hollywood Suite also announced on December 21 that Eileen Gaudet has been promoted to manager of VOD and traffic for the company.
