EGA Expands Board of Advisors

Los Angeles, California, July 8th— Today, the Entertainment Globalization Association announced that its Board of Advisors has expanded. This brings the total board seats to twelve. Three industry leaders were added to the board, two new seats and a replacement for David Lee who stepped down earlier this year to focus on the integration of SDI with Iyuno after they acquired the company. EGA’s Board of Advisors is composed of industry leaders from companies across the content globalization ecosystem and includes senior executives from; Keywords, Deluxe, Hiventy, Visual Data Media Services, VSI, Audiomasters, Zoo Digital, Plint, and Iyuno-SDI.

“ The board of advisors is an extremely important resource for the EGA staff and provides invaluable input into the focus of the association. I’m extremely grateful for their insights and guidance as we shape the future of this industry. Expanding the board to include more diverse perspectives was something all the sitting members supported. ” said Chris Fetner, EGA’s Managing Director.

The new board members are; Teresa Philips Co-founder & CEO of Spherex, Paulette Pantoja Founder and CEO of Blu Digital Group and Barnaby Wass SVP of Transperfect. All three board appointments will take effect immediately. Spherex’s seat is permanent while the others will be 24-month appointments.

“We had lots of highly accomplished executives from the EGA membership come forward and offer to serve in this important capacity, narrowing it down to these three wasn’t easy. Ultimately Teresa, Paulette and Barnaby offered the board deeper and broader insights in areas of opportunities for the association. I know I speak for all of the board in expressing my gratitude to everyone who’s willing to serve our industry and I look forward to working with these leaders.” said Fetner.

About the EGA:
The EGA is a California-based trade association primarily focused on building a stronger connection with the creative talent that entrusts them to “retell” their stories for audiences in different cultures and languages. Their main areas of focus are creating standardization, conducting localization research, creating industry education opportunities and celebrating high quality localization. The organization is narrowly focused on entertainment localization as defined by audio localization (dubbing), subtitling, audio description and graphic replacement for episodic, feature-length and gaming entertainment. Currently, there are over 120 member companies and nearly 600 individual members from around the world.

About Teresa Phillips:
Teresa Phillips is co-founder and CEO of Spherex, a global data and technology company that is pioneering the culturalization of media for international distribution of film and television. Prior to Spherex, Teresa founded venture-backed company, Graspr. She has held executive positions at both Yahoo! and Time Warner leading teams in product, operations, and data science. Teresa earned her leadership stripes while serving in the U.S. Army at NATO and the Pentagon. She has a Bachelor of Science degree from James Madison University, is a member of the OTT.X Leadership Committee, on the DEG Canon Club Advisory Board, and was named one of Variety’s 2021 Innovators to Watch and one of Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Top Women of Influence.

About Paulette Pantoja:
Paulette Pantoja is Founder and CEO of Blu Digital Group, which provides transformative digital supply chain software and services to the media and entertainment industry.  Since founding the company in 2007, Paulette has helped Blu Digital Group play an increasingly influential role within the industry by focusing on post-production workflow optimization and quality control of film and television content. Paulette holds a patent in an online quality assurance and project management system. She earned a BA in Film and Television from UCLA and an MBA from Pepperdine University’s President and Key Executive program. Paulette also graduated from the Executive Program at UCLA Anderson School of Management and the Goldman Sachs 10ksb program.

About Barnaby Wass:
Barnaby Wass, Senior Vice President, is based in Barcelona and brings over 25 years of experience to the localization industry. He joined TransPerfect in 2001 and oversees 20 global offices, providing high-quality language services across multiple fields and industries worldwide. Beyond execution and delivery, Barnaby focuses on internal ventures whether organic or supported by M&A. Within this capacity, he launched TransPerfect’s data and AI-driven media initiative to develop and grow innovative media localization solutions for the corporate and entertainment world. Barnaby holds dual British and French nationality and graduated from the Executive Translation and Interpreting school (ESUCA) in Toulouse, France.