Avid Launches Customer Association to Provide Essential Strategic Leadership, Collaborate with Industry Visionaries, and Deepen Customer Relationships

IBC (Hall 7, Booth #J20), AMSTERDAM, 2013/09/11

Global industry leaders from CBS News, CBC/Radio-Canada, ZDF German Television, CCTV, and ITV join as Founding Members of Executive Board

Avid® (NASDAQ: AVID) today announced the creation of the Avid Customer Association, a comprehensive initiative designed to provide essential strategic leadership to the media industry, collaborate with key industry leaders and visionaries, and deepen relationships between the company and its customers. The multifaceted program will engage its network of broadcast, creative and media customers, and other industry leaders, in a highly collaborative process to provide both strategic leadership and cutting edge technology solutions to address the most important issues facing the media industry today. 

“With our long heritage as the most proven and trusted technology leader in the media industry, Avid is fortunate to have gathered the largest and most forward thinking community of media organizations and creative professionals as our customers,” stated Louis Hernandez, Jr., president and CEO of Avid. “Our work together has allowed Avid to develop a clear understanding of the pressures that creative and media professionals face today. Building on our culture of collaboration, we will work together even more tightly to navigate the evolving media landscape and provide strategic direction for the entire industry.”

The Avid Customer Association will hold a major event for customers on April 4-5, 2014, just prior to NAB in Las Vegas. This event, and the Avid Customer Association overall, will allow members to have personal interaction with and exposure to industry professional colleagues; access to best practices and shared experiences from the world’s premier media clients; and exclusive participation in setting Avid’s product direction and strategy. Additional Avid Customer Association user groups will be overseen by a series of single-focus boards, each of which will have an identified customer responsible for ongoing leadership and management of the initiative.

A Customer Association Executive Board will provide oversight to the individual Avid Customer Association boards, which will focus on topics such as strategic development, products and solutions, industry standards, customer advocacy, customer success, and more.  Founding members of the Avid Customer Association Executive Board include:

• Dr. Andreas Bereczky, Executive Vice President of Technology and Production, ZDF German Television
• Dany Harrison, General Manager Radio-Canada Productions, CBC/Radio-Canada
• Fred Mattocks, General Manager, Media Operations and Technology, CBC English Services, CBC/Radio-Canada
• Frank Governale, Vice President, CBS News Technology and Operations, CBS News
• Ding Wenhua, Chief Engineer, CCTV
• Paul Stevenson, Director of Technology and Technical Operations, ITV News, ITV

"The transformation that is occurring across the broadcast and media industry is placing ever greater demands on our production solutions," said Paul Stevenson, director of Technology and Technical Operations, ITV News, ITV. "With its breadth of customers across the industry, and very wide range of experience of the production and broadcast industry, Avid is well placed to bring the world's media leaders together and to help set a clear path to inform their product development. I am very pleased to be a part of this effort." 

"With this new customer association, Avid is clearly demonstrating its commitment to collaborating with our entire community of media professionals," said Dr. Andreas Bereczky, executive vice president of Technology and Production, ZDF German Television. "I am looking forward to working with my industry peers and the Avid leadership team, to make progress on a wide range of strategic issues as well as provide insights to help guide Avid's future innovations and strategic plans."